


Labyrinthine

by firstordershitposting (ald0us)



Series: The Killing Kind [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Feelings, M/M, Multi, Past Abuse, Past Torture, Pining, Slow Build, Slow Burn, lots of fighting, moping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 02:50:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6638332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ald0us/pseuds/firstordershitposting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now that Snoke is dead, Hux is Emperor and Ren is in his enforcer. One of Hux's first acts as emperor is to request armistice talks with General Organa. Yet the talks are plagued with difficulties from the very start, some ideological, most personal, and the prospect of peace seems slim at best. Relationships are stressed to the breaking point as tensions escalate. And where the hell is Rey?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Labyrinthine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Clarice Chiara Sorcha (claireoujisama)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Clarice+Chiara+Sorcha+%28claireoujisama%29).



General Leia Organa smoothed the collar of her vest, glancing distractedly into the durasteel mirror in her quarters. She felt light-years away from reality, light-headed; she could hardly believe that after years of war—a lifetime or war, really—an end might be in sight. Part of her would gladly accept an end over a victory, if only it came quickly.

It wasn’t that she was getting too old for freedom-fighting. It was that the soldiers under her command, and under the enemy’s, were getting younger by the day. It had been just last week that she had addressed a group of recruits that had more than one fresh face that couldn’t be a day over sixteen, no matter what their documents supposedly said. It had made her feel cold.

Leia pushed the thought away and reviewed what she knew of the newly-crowned Emperor of the First Order. Brendol Hux III, formerly a General, mastermind behind the creation of the Starkiller base. Foremost proponent and perfector of the ruthlessly effective modern stormtrooper programme, commander of fanatic loyalty within the First Order. Crowned Emperor nearly two weeks prior. Unofficially: named for his father, former Imperial Commandant Brendol Hux II, born on Arkanis around 4 BBY and raised on a First Order flagship, 36 years old. Impressive but quiet rise to the top; it would be an easy mistake to make to assume Hux’s seeming lack of experience made him a weak general.

She felt she had made this exact mistake. And it cost the Resistance—and the Republic—lives.

But everyone—within the Order and the New Republic alike—had been shocked when, in the aftermath of Snoke’s death, Brendol Hux seized control of the imploding Imperial remnant. His coronation as Emperor was an impossible three days after the news of Snoke’s existence and death broke over galactic newsoutlets. And Hux had been there, assuring the citizens of the First Order of their safety in calm, precise words. Leia had almost viewed the move with approval—Hux was a savvy politician, no doubt there. And his Imperial persona couldn’t be any more different to his spitting-mad speech above Starkiller Base.

That’s what they called him, in the Resistance. The Starkiller. His fanaticism had been another part of what made it easy to underestimate him: he seemed a less polished, slightly more unhinged clone of Tarkin. She had even seen speculation on the newsholos to that effect. It had made her heart ache in cold pangs that lasted long into the night.

So if she had been shocked when Hux was crowned Emperor, she was floored when the newly-built New Republic senate had received a private tightbeam communiqué from the new Emperor requesting a private audience with her and her entourage—and her only—to discuss a truce.

At first, she’d been skeptical. It sounded like a ploy to soften the Resistance with the hope of peace, while the Order schemed, or built another superweapon—she doubted they’d ever relinquish the idea of annihilating planets. She hadn’t seriously considered the offer, and certainly didn’t plan even to respond. But the prospect of peace enticed her, late at night, when she could feel death and destruction in her bones and the galaxy’s cries in her marrow. When the new emperor lifted the embargo of Bespin as a token of good will and invited the New Republic to approach to secure a position for the talks, Leia knew she could not ignore the request any longer. It seemed Hux was serious.

The first installment of talks started in two standard hours on the planet’s surface, now officially a war-neutral zone, locked down with the strictest security both sides could provide.

It was widely believed that she, the great General Organa, unsurpassed military genius, did not feel fear or anxiety. She could assure anyone that this was not the case. She felt positively sick.

Leia took her comlink off her small bedside table, took and released a deep breath, and thumbed the comlink on. “Lando?”

A pause, then, _“Leia.”_ Lando sounded tense, but just relaxed enough. He’d always been a good actor; it had taken her years to parse all his tics and tells that broadcasted his moods. “ _Is anything wrong?”_

“No, not at all,” she assured him. “I’m just...nervous. It feels like something’s going to happen.”

“ _Something bad?”_ Lando’s voice sounded snappier, immediately concerned. “ _Do you need to call them off—the talks—?”_

“No, nothing like that,” Leia replied quickly. “I just have this feeling. Of...portent.”

“ _Have you talked to Luke about it?”_

Leia’s lips twisted, her jaw tightening. A blip of discomfort settled at the pit of her stomach at the mention of her brother’s name. She opened her synthleather briefcase, full of documentation, statute, and notes and opened the top file at random, scanning it blindly. “No. Luke’s—no, I haven’t.”

Lando, to Leia’s profound relief, did not probe her reaction. “ _So you just have a...very bad feeling—”_

Leia smiled despite herself and gave a bemused glare into the comlink. “Do not finish that sentence, Calrissian.”

“ _Got it, general.”_ Leia could imagine Lando tossing off a salute and a giving a cheeky grin. Some things never changed. “ _Listen, Leia, Allya is heading up to_ Home One _now. She’ll be your escort to the city. You guys know the agreed policies, right? Only one designated armed escort, up to three of your entourage can enter the debilitations room—”_

 _“_ Break at 2200, return to our ships for the evening. I know.” Leia returned the folio to her briefcase and smoothed down the front of her simple cream vest once more, checking for what felt like the umpteenth time to make sure she had all she would need. “Lando, Poe’s comming me. I’ll talk later.”

“ _Take care of yourself, Leia.”_

Leia switched channels to accept Poe’s incoming comm. “Organa here.”

“ _General,”_ Poe said, his normally calm voice clipped and tight. “ _Urgent communication from the_ Finalizer. _They’re asking the deliberations be made private.”_

“Private?” Leia snatched up the comm. and paced up the short length of her quarters, a tight band constricting around her chest. “Between the Emperor and me? No one else?”

“ _Not exactly. The Starki—the emperor— is asking personally that after the our party meets theirs that you and he speak privately. The message didn’t say why. He says that our security head can arrange with theirs beforehand whatever you need to feel comfortable. Do you want to call it off?”_

“What? No, don’t call it off—what’s he playing at?”

Leia could hear Poe’s grimace. “ _I’m not sure, general. It sounds to me as if he’s trying to throw you off balance._ ”

Leia shook her head absently. Her brain jumped to hyperspeed. Did Hux really think he could intimidate her, one-on-one? What sort of advantage could he possibly gain being away from his soldiers, his source of power? Had it been a trap all along? What did he hope to gain?

“Get Allya Calrissian on the phone. Tell her to tell their security head—Phasma—that I want a someone else with me. Tell her I want you, and I want you armed. And our party waits outside the door at all times. The proceedings will still be recorded independently by both sides, and I reserve the right to annul or delay the proceedings if I feel like there’s been unfair play.”

 _“Acknowledged,”_ Poe said, uncharacteristically grim. He, for once, had not seemed keen on the idea of signing away a treaty before giving the Order a sound defeat. Given how they’d flouted the Galactic Concordat at the incept of the new galactic civil war, she couldn’t particularly blame him. There was a pause as he relayed her instructions to Lando’s daughter.

When he returned, she said, more quietly, “Are you okay to do this? I can get Ackbar, or Finn—”

“ _That would be harder on him than it would be for me_.” Poe broke off. “ _I’ll be fine, general. Thank you for asking.”_

She was glad she had the luxury to ask. During the assault on the Starkiller base, she had not. She saw the toll it took on him. She hadn’t forgiven herself for it. But Black Squadron had needed him. _Leia_ had needed him, the Resistance needed him. He was their talisman, leader, and comrade all in one. And he had suffered for it. Never again, if she could help it.

 _Never again._ It had been the Alderaanian survivors’ mantra in the years after the fall of the Empire. But it had happened again with the destruction of the Hosnian system, fivefold.

Was she making the right choice to parley with the Hosnian system’s butcher?

Before the doubt could seep in further her comm. pinged again. She jabbed at the comm. to accept the channel, cutting Poe off.

“ _General!”_ Finn’s voice, breathless, as if he’d been running. Knowing Finn, he had been. “ _We’ve got a potential ping on Master Skywalker’s location. Polis Massa, deep in Rim Space.”_

Leia’s stomach dropped. “Polis Massa? What’s he doing out there?”

“ _No idea, general. Should we...should we send a team...?”_ He couldn’t keep his hopefulness out of his voice. Finn saw Luke the same way Rey once had—the way she once had. He was adamant in his belief, stubbornly loyal to last war’s symbol of hope.

She owed him. She wished she could deny him his wish, for his own sake. But things were getting desperate. “Take a team. You and Jess. Check out the blip, report to me what you find.”

“ _Thank you, general! I mean—I won’t disappoint you, General Organa—”_

 _“_ I know you won’t, Finn.” Her comm. light flashed, she looked down. “I’m sorry, Poe is calling me and I must take it. Contact the Admiral Ackbar if you need anything further, he’s in command for the duration of the talks.”

She switched the channel back. “Poe, please give me some good news.”

“ _They’ve agreed to our stipulations,”_ Poe told her. “The Emperor counter-requested you assent to him retaining his own guard, singular. Do we agree?”

“I think so. Yes. He’ll have to clear his guard with us when we get there, same for you, but we’ll deal with that when we get there. Is that all?”

“ _Yes ma’am. He made no further requests. Allya’s standing by when we’re ready.”_

 _“_ Thank you, Poe.” Leia pressed a hand to her forehead, she could feel a headache building inside her skull. “I’ll meet you in the main hangar at 1200.”

Poe acknowledged her instructions, relaying them to Allya. “ _General, are...are you okay? To do this?_ ”

Leia felt a warm rush of emotion that swept away the icy tendrils of worry that were stealing into her limbs. Poe and people like him were still there. They were on her side. They would stop her if she did something catastrophic. It would work out. “I will be, Poe. Thank you for asking.”

“ _You deserve better,_ ” Poe said quietly, then abruptly switched off as someone called his name in the distance.

 

* * *

 

Poe Dameron had never been to Bespin City before, but even he could tell that the atmosphere was off. From the second they touched down and he’d gotten out of his X-Wing, he felt distinctly uneasy, as if he could feel the tension in the air. The stakes were huge and emotions were running high on the part of his allies and their hosts. Allya, usually as jocular and easy-mannered as her father, was tight-lipped and silent. Their First Order counterparts—well, Poe wasn’t entirely convinced they _had_ emotions. From what he’d learned from Finn, it seemed like they did their best to program those out from an early age. Thinking about it made him feel cold.

And General Organa was trusting the Starkiller to be alone in a room with her? From the rumors he’d heard, the new Emperor had no compunctions about assassinating his opponents.

BB-8 bleeped at him to stop tapping his feet, it was making the little droid nervous.

“Sorry, buddy,” Poe muttered, and did his best to stop tapping. The effort didn’t go very far. BB-8 did not complain further. The droid was very astute about these things. Poe busied himself with checking his sidearm. It was loaded and functional. “You stay here and guard the general and Admiral, okay?”

BB-8 twittered an affirmative. Poe strode over to the general’s shuttle, meeting Allaya at the boarding ramp.

“Everything good?” he asked.

She nodded. “I’m meeting Captain Phasma, their security head, before we enter the city. Do you want to come with me, or stay with the General?”

“The Admiral’s with her. I’ll have your six.” Allaya could handle herself and then some, but what he’d heard about Phasma did not lead him to trust her. If things went out of control, backup would never hurt.

Allaya gave him one of her wide grins, and he felt marginally better. “Glad to hear it, Dameron.”

They started towards the landing pad. Allaya commed Phasma and let her know they had arrived and set a meeting place.

“Listen,” Poe said in a quick undertone. “If anything goes wrong, I want you to get the general and get the shuttle the hell off the planet. I don’t care if you have to leave me behind, nothing’s happening to her here.”

“That’s the plan,” Allaya said calmly, and Poe felt another wave of gratitude that the Starkiller had happened to pick such a reliable host for this....whatever it was. “But for what it’s worth, I’d feel much better if we were blasting out of here with you to as escort.”

Poe managed to smile. Dying wasn’t high on his to-do list, if he could help it. “Me too.”

The hangar doors opened and Poe felt his stomach seize as he caught a flash of shining armor from the other end. He wasn’t particularly surprised the captain had chosen to keep her armor on even during peace talks—she probably would have felt as naked without it as Poe would without BB-8 and his X-Wing. Allaya’s older sister, Jazsmin Calrissian, was striding in step with the stormtrooper commander, her escort.

“Captain,” Allaya acknowledged, as Jazsmin nodded Poe’s way.

Phasma gave a curt nod of her own in response. “Is this General Organa’s escort?”

Did she recognize him? “I am,” Poe said.

“We’ll do weapon checks when the two parties meet,” Phasma told him. “But ours won’t be armed. Is that your only weapon?”

“It is.” Poe hadn’t unclenched his teeth. He had to relax. Breathe. He was letting the general down.

“Allaya and I will take you both to the outer chamber. The governor of Bespin City, Lando Calrissian, will meet you there and confirm the agreed upon rules. Then Poe, General Organa, and the Emperor and his guard will retire to the inner chamber to discuss. Is that what you agreed?”

“Yes.” Poe and Phasma said at once.

“Good. We’ll meet back here in five minutes with the respective parties and proceed together to the outer chamber.”

They broke without further fanfare, Allaya and Poe heading back towards the General’s shuttle, and Jazsmin and Phasma returning to the Starkiller. Poe resisted the urge to glance over his shoulder as they went.

“Did you hear that?” he hissed. “The Starkiller’s guard won’t be armed. That doesn’t sound good.”

Allaya gave a tense shrug. “Maybe it’s a gesture of good will.”

Poe snorted. “The First Order? Right. No, it’s their...Knight. Kylo Ren. Allaya, he can stop blaster bolts with his _mind._ He could kill all of us in the bat of an eye. This is _bait,_ we have to warn—“

“That’s the General’s decision to make,” Allaya replied. “You can tell her all this when she’s approving the Emperor’s guard.”  
  
Poe huffed in frustration. “By that point, it’s too late! He gets near us, we’re dead. He’s like Luke and Rey, but he’s _not_ like them, they’d never do the stuff he’s capable of—”

“It’s General Organa’s decision,” Allaya repeated, and Poe felt a prick of guilt at the position he was putting her in. She had a duty both to the Resistance, the Order, and her father—her people. He was putting those duties in conflict—well, more conflict than they were already in.

A very small part of Poe wondered if he was overreacting for personal reasons. He probably was. It would be a small miracle if he wasn’t.

The general was no fool. She had to have known that Ren would be there, knew what he was capable of, and had decided the risk worth it. Why he hadn’t anticipated it himself was beyond him. Besides, if the Starkiller really wanted them dead, running away now wasn’t really going to up their chances much. This was a large part of the reason Poe had been suspicious of the peace request in the first place.

“You’re right,” Poe muttered. “But I don’t like it.”

 

* * *

 

“General Organa.” The Starkiller said, his face and tone as flat as if he were commenting on the weather. He held out a gloved hand, the movement surprisingly dainty; Poe noticed his general’s bars on his sleeves. He doubted the man was even trying to be disdainful: it appeared as if that was just how his face worked. He was an unimpressive man, despite his height, with an impressive air about him. This air may or may not have come from the fact he murdered about 37 million people. He wore an inornate First Order uniform, a large coat tossed over his shoulders, his orange hair combed and laquered within an inch of its life—Poe couldn’t imagine a man being that cruel to his own hair. His skin had the sickly pale hue Poe recognized as a sign he’d likely lived shipside all his life. As far as a great evil went, Poe rated him pretty much a letdown.

“Emperor Hux,” the general returned, her rich, warm voice a direct counterpoint to the Starkiller’s somewhat reedy lilt. She took his hand, shook it. Poe knew from experience she had a handshake of iron; if the Starkiller expected anything else, his bony face didn’t show it. “Thank you for reaching out to me for these talks. The prospect of peace is a historical moment.”

Poe could hear in her voice that she meant it. She meant it very much. He hoped the Starkiller couldn’t tell. He trusted the General, but still. She was tired of war. They all were.

Poe caught a flash of movement behind Hux and immediately felt his blood halt in his veins. He wasn’t wearing a mask, and he was no longer wearing those melodramatic long robes but something that might have passed for a uniform. But Poe would know that hunched walk, those long strides, stalking around like hunting prey, anywhere.

Kylo Ren.

Poe threw a panicked glance at the general. Did she know—she knew, she had to. She had frozen, hadn’t moved, reacted. Poe remembered how her face would fall whenever he was mentioned. Did she recognize Ben—? Yes, of course she did—had the Starkiller planned this on purpose?

Poe forced himself to stare Kylo Ren in his dark eyes, feeling his skin on fire. “How can you show your face?” he growled. “What you did to your own _father—_ your mother—“

“Poe,” the general said, and Poe fell silent.

Ren studiously avoided everyone’s gaze, fixing his dark eyes on the floor. A muscle was jumping in his jaw; his gloved hands were very tense at his sides, one was slowly curling and uncurling into a fist. His long black hair hung dumbly around his face. He stood very still, a hunched statue, powerful shoulders rising and falling rapidly.

“ _Say something!”_ Poe wanted to shout, but willed himself silent. His heart was pounding, adrenaline running cold in his blood.

“I think,” the Starkiller ventured, and Poe could have decapitated him on the spot, “we should take this somewhere more private.”

“Let’s,” the general said. She turned towards the door and strode purposefully through to the inner debilitations chamber, leaving Poe, the Starkiller, and Kylo Ren trailing in her wake. Poe pushed past them, not caring what the hell they or the others thought. Decorum had a time and a place, and this had just gotten personal. Decorum could go fuck itself.

As soon as the door had shut behind them, the general said, “You want to tell me what this is all about?”

If the Starkiller was at all offended by her directness, he soon noticed the way she was leaning over the conference table with both palms, glaring at him with a close cousin of murder in her eyes, and didn’t show it.

“I am marrying your son.” the self-appointed Emperor told her, cool as could be. “As his only remaining family, I thought you ought to be present. The paperwork should take only a few moments.”

Poe’s mind chewed over these words, rejected their meaning, spat them back out. _Married_? The Starkiller and Kylo Ren—Ben Solo? The idea was as incomprehensible as it was foul.

“You... _what_?” the general snapped.

“This is bantha shit,” Poe growled. “You ask us— _her_ —here to discuss peace, and then you parade _him_ around, and then you drop whatever the fuck _this_ is—?!”

“The marriage would proceed whether General Organa was present or not,” the Starkiller said stiffly. “Offering to seal the union in her presence was merely a formality. The peace talks are a separate, entirely valid affair.”

“I don’t exactly hear the church bells ringing,” Poe snarled. “He—“ he jabbed a finger in Ren’s direction, “ _murdered_ his father. He _betrayed_ the Republic—his family—his _mother—_ and you have the gall to invite her— _“_

“Rich words from a traitor,” the tall statue behind the Starkiller sneered, coming to life for the first time. “Or have you forgotten the Damerons once boasted a long lineage of Imperial service? Perhaps it’s fitting, two _deserters_ sticking together—”

Poe’s eyebrows shot up and his fists clenched at his sides. “Oh, so it’s gonna be like that _. Ben.”_

Ren’s lips twisted into an ugly snarl and his black eyes shone with malice. He gave a low growl through gritted teeth, hackles rising. His fingertips twitched—he didn’t have to even move he could do it all with his mind—

Poe’s heart leapt in his chest. His hand went to his blaster, seizing the grip—

“ _Ren._ ” the Starkiller snapped. He raised a gloved hand, as if pulling his pet asshole to heel with an imaginary leash. His voice could have sliced cold durasteel. For a flash of a second, Poe could see why he commanded respect.

“My apologies, General,” he went on. “If you wish to continue with the armistice proceedings, I am prepared to begin discussions.”

“Well I’m not,” the general told him coldly. She stood stock-still, some halted emotion frozen on her face. “I don’t know a lot about you, _Emperor,_ but if you’re genuinely interested in peace, that was a hell of a foot to start off on.”

“I recognize that.”

“You fucking better,” Leia snapped. “Because if you think I’m going to be treated this way the entire time, you’ve got another thing coming.”

The Starkiller remained a mask of porcelain. Poe could see one gloved hand digging into the other, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “Acknowledged, general.”

The general neither accepted nor rejected this. “I’ll be back at 1100 tomorrow morning to discuss an armistice, with my full staff. Is this acceptable to you?”

The Starkiller’s lips twisted slightly into something that was a passing facsimile of a smile. “Quite.”

The general nodded, then turned to the sulking shadow behind the Emperor. Her eyes did not quite soften. “Ben.”

Ren’s face twisted. His eyes darted between his Emperor, Poe, and his mother very rapidly, as if trapped. His lips peeled off his teeth in a feral snarl. Then he about-faced abruptly and stormed out the door. Before the door slid shut Poe heard a wordless scream.

“1100 it is, then,” the Starkiller said coolly, then offered the general a regal nod before sweeping around and following.

Poe let out a very deep breath he didn’t quite he’d been holding. His heart was still hammering; he felt like he’d just run a marathon and a half. Even the run against the Starkiller base hadn’t made him feel that way. That had felt cathartic, exciting, terrifying, good, triumphant. This...this did not.

The general’s shoulders crumbled and Poe pushed away his own problems, stepping closer. “It’s not your fault,” he said, as gently as he could. “It was Ben’s choice then, and it’s Ben’s choice now.”

“I know that,” the general said heavily, and Poe privately doubted that she did. “It just...it hurt more than I thought, Poe. I thought I could handle it. Seeing him again. After....after Han. I knew he’d be here. I thought enough time had passed. But I still love him.”

The last words weighed on Poe’s chest, almost a physical burden. Of course she did. In his experience, Leia Organa had as large a capacity for love as she had for righteous fury and determination. And of course it hurt. It could do nothing else.

“You handled it well,” Poe told her truthfully. “You handled it better than me.”

The general looked up at him with her warm eyes and Poe knew he’d managed to speak to a deep worry. “Thank you. And Poe, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said.

She straightened up and held out her arms, with a tired smile and . “May I hug you?”

“Of course,” Poe said, and did. She was warm and human and smelled of engine grease and pine trees, and hugging her felt so nice it almost brought tears to his eyes. It certainly did volumes to chase away the phantom pain in his skull.

“I do worry about it,” she told him quietly. “I worry about you. Take care of yourself, Poe.”

“I will,” he promised. After a moment longer, they let go. Leia had tears in her eyes. Poe had only seen tears in her eyes twice before, once after the destruction of the Hosnian system, and the other after Han had died. It always made him want to fight whomever had hurt her, even if it would mean taking on a Death Star—or Kylo Ren—with is bare fists.

“Don’t tell anyone about what he said,” she asked. “The wedding. We may not be able to understand—and I sure as Corellian hell don’t—but...they deserve their privacy.”

Poe nodded. He’d almost completely forgotten about the revelation that Starkiller was going to marry Kylo Ren. Were they in love? Could those two assholes even be in love? He didn’t know. He also didn’t really give a bantha’s asscheek. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“Thank you.” Leia wiped at her eyes and straightened to her full height. “Could you please send Lando and Allaya in? We have a lot to talk about if these armistice talks are going to reconvene tomorrow.”

Poe nodded. As he left to find the Calrissians, he decided that even though the general could take care of herself, he’d be damned if he let Kylo Ren or his upstart so-called Emperor upset her again.

 

* * *

 

Emperor Hux found Kylo Ren sitting on the floor in an abandoned hallway—abandoned, likely, exactly because of Kylo Ren. Entirely too late, Ren scrambled into a cross-legged position and tried to pretend that he hadn’t been sulking and nursing a possibly broken hand, probably from punching a wall like an adolescent, precisely two seconds prior.

“Go away. I’m meditating.”

“Meditating, my ass,” Hux said, and Kylo snorted at his unusually direct speech, almost despite himself. “Now that you’re done making an ass of yourself, will you let me look at your hand?”

Ren’s face pulled into a scowl. “That pilot—he defends Organa’s every move, he’s sleeping with the traitor, FN-2187—did you want me stay silent—?”

That was precisely what Hux wanted Ren to do, but he kept this to himself. “I was referring to the part where you hit a wall.” He politely did not mention that the area around Ren’s eyes, usually tinged dark with exhaustion or overworking, was bright pink from crying.

“Oh,” Ren said, a bit lamely.

Hux knelt carefully next to him, smoothing his tunic so as not to wrinkle it too severely. The only material the Order had been able to budget for uniforms was hopelessly easy to wrinkle and almost impossible to maintain; it only spoke to the discipline of First Order officers that their uniforms were always pressed and pristine. At first, it had taken a full cadre of officers to keep Ren’s uniform in order—Hux noted with warm satisfaction that he seemed to have figured out a way to keep it somewhat respectable. Either that, or he’d bullied Mitaka or one of his other officers into fixing it for him. Mitaka was almost permanently terrified of Ren, for good reason. “Are you going to let me see your hand or not?”

“No.”

“Suit yourself.” Hux settled into the most dignified position he could manage while sitting on the floor across from a sulking Kylo Ren. He offered him his best sneer. “You know, I’m surprised you’ve managed to contain yourself so long. I know you want to mention it.”

“Mention what?” Ren demanded, firing up immediately, grateful to fall back into the familiar routine.

“Darth Vader. Thanisson tells me Bespin City is quite the shrine for his...devotees. I’m surprised you haven’t dragged me off to shop for souvenirs.”

“It is,” Ren said darkly, pensive and broody again, and Hux felt that somehow he had misstepped, the summoned sneer sliding off his face. Was it the mention of Vader that triggered unwelcome thoughts of family? Or something else? Hux had long known that killing Snoke, his master, would have an....adverse effect on Ren. He knew Ren would become moody, guilty, resentful of both himself and Hux—and Hux especially. Being free of Snoke after so many years—how old had the records indicated he had been when he turned against his Jedi uncle? Snoke had done his best to erase all history of Kylo Ren—especially of Ben Solo—but no one was perfectly thorough. And Hux had been very persistent. The source hadn’t been clear on age, however. Fifteen? Sixteen? It was incomprehensible, either way.

For a second Hux’s heart raced a little bit faster, expecting to feel Ren’s invisible grip against his throat any second. He had safeguards in place, of course—three of the galaxy’s most discrete and deadly assassins promised a large sum of credits to fill a hit on Kylo Ren should it ever seem he’d killed his Emperor. But he assumed Ren knew about them, and highly doubted he would particularly care, if his murderous whims ever turned Hux’s way. It was simply for the principle of the thing.

“I failed where he failed,” Ren muttered, and Hux’s heartbeat slowed, just a little. “I killed my master. I’m no better than Vader.”

“You’re alive,” Hux said simply. “He’s not. You won; he didn’t. It’s that simple.”

“Maybe to you,” Ren snapped, and for a fraction of a second Hux could imagine what Organa must have suffered during Ben Solo’s childhood. “Is being _alive_ really so much better? I mean, what kind of life is this, anyway?”

Hux observed him carefully. “Being at the beck and call of a petty bureaucrat who can’t even use the Force, you mean?” He said this very calmly, as if commenting on the bucolic weather.

Ren started, almost guiltily, surprised that Hux would be so blunt. Why was everyone always so surprised? Hux was very blunt. He hated mincing words, even if he was very good at it.

“Well...uh...yeah.”

“I’m going to bring stability to the First Order, Ren.” Hux said, fighting to keep an edge of earnestness from creeping into his tone. “This armistice with the Republic...I know you don’t approve, but the Order’s economy is in shambles. Reopening galactic-wide trade to our systems and focusing on rebuilding our forces could bring untold prosperity to our people. They’re desperate, Ren, and afraid, and there’s not much longer the war can go on before they collapse. Not the military, of course. The people themselves. They deserve a better life than the Republic ever gave them—and the Order is finally in the position to provide it for them.”

“I don’t care about them,” Ren returned, equally blunt. His dark eyes were wide and wholly artless. “I don’t care about the galaxy, I don’t care about your Empire. I care about you. I want you.”

Something fluttered briefly in Hux’s chest that felt very much like narcissism. He touched Ren’s chin gently with a still-gloved hand and tilted his face so that their gazes met and looked into Ren’s eyes. Ren’s looked back into his. “I know.”

Ren was silent for a time. He did not even blink when he finally he said, “You just want me to obey you. That’s what you care about.”

Hux broke eye contact, bizarrely hurt. A cruel part of him wanted to say yes, another, larger part screamed to say no, a third, confusing part scoffed that it didn’t matter. He hesitated, torn at an impossible junction. He could tell by the darkening in Ren’s eyes that his silence was incriminating. He wanted to say no. But the words wouldn’t come. He wasn’t even really sure what he would have said it if he could.

“That’s what I thought.” Ren sounded calm, uncharacteristically so. Hux would have expected him to throw a temper tantrum, like a small child demanding attention, petulant. Or murderous, enraged, a scorned animal. Instead he was clipped, professional—cold. It sounded to Hux’s ears as how he might sound to Ren.

Ren unfolded his long legs and pushed himself quickly to his feet. “I’ll see you in the shuttle,” he said, not facing Hux as he spoke. He strode off in long, angry paces. Hux watched his boots as he went.

 

* * *

 

Kylo tugged at the collar of his uniform. It was uncomfortably tight around his throat, and he was used to the freedom of motion of his old garb. He understood why Hux—Emperor Hux, he thought bitterly—had asked he wear it. He was a part of the First Order now, and as such had to make an effort to at least nominally fit into it. It felt wrong. Restrictive. He wished he had his helmet. Without it he felt laid bare, as bare to others as their minds were to him. He was out of practice in guarding his expressions and telegraphed almost as much with his face as others did with their thoughts.

Hux had hidden his thoughts from him. Kylo could easily have forced his way in, maybe even without Hux’s knowledge. It was not the mental shields that bothered him. It was that Hux saw a need to put them up.

Kylo’s jaw clenched at the memory, intrusive, of his mother’s—General Organa’s—projection. He’d heard the mental screams of many, but not often from someone sensitive to the Force. She was sloppy, untrained no matter his uncle’s efforts, and that made it all the worse, her thoughts and pain ripping through the room and reflecting back on him from the walls—

 _Ben,_ she’d called. _Ben, Ben, Ben._

It had hurt. The sheer volume of it. The pain of it, long repressed, tearing through and rustling his own suppressed pain loose.

She was not the only one who’d called for Ben Solo, screaming into the Force.

_Ben! Ben, come back! Come back!_

Kylo felt the hot sharpness of his anger, tasted it, held it close. Power rushed into him like a floodgates like a hit of adrenaline; he savored it, breathed it in deep. He was still Kylo Ren. He still commanded Kylo Ren’s power. Snoke’s death changed nothing. In fact, it only proved that power.

His power was all he had left.

Kylo felt a nag of guilt. This was not entirely true. But it made him angrier to think it was.

Hux was absorbed in paperwork. It seemed to be all he did. He had done a lot of paperwork as a general, but now the volume seemed to have, impossibly, doubled. Tripled, even. It gave Hux headaches and kept him awake late at night, hours when only Kylo should have been keeping him from sleep. He was more than willing to rip himself apart for the sake of the First Order, Kylo had always known that. So why was he surprised that Hux was willing to sacrifice Kylo as well?

He thought of Organa’s face again. _Ben, Ben, Ben._ He wished he could shut it off. Close a mental fist around her throat. But he knew he couldn’t do it. Not after....after the collapse of the Starkiller base. He probably couldn’t ever have done it. He couldn’t have done it any more than Hux could have looked him in the eyes and lied that he loved him. And he could still hear a limping _Ben_ whispered quietly into his ear.

He thought about Snoke. Snoke, who always knew how to make the whispering go away, no matter how loudly Organa or Solo cried for their lost son. Kylo had silenced Han Solo’s whispers. It was time he learned to ignore Organa’s on his own.

Thinking about Snoke he felt guilty. He nursed the guilt until it felt hot and burned, but there was no spark.

“ _I betrayed my master. He trusted me and I betrayed him.”_ Nothing. Snoke trusting him was a blatant lie, anyways.

“ _I’ve traded just traded one uncaring master for another, and one who can’t even teach me of the Force.”_ That didn’t do much either, other than make him feel rather pathetic. Self-pity, though strong, was a poor catalyst for the dark side.

A tap on his shoulder. “Lord Ren?”

Kylo jerked out of his reverie. He felt disoriented; he’d been worlds away. “Yes?”

“We’re back on the Finalizer,” Phasma said, her filtered voice colored with concern. In hear head, he heard snatches of thoughts, _had a fight with the General again, goddamn dramatic for a soldier, miracle we get anything done._ Kylo smiled half-fondly at her thoughts and received a strange look for it. Phasma was as competent, brutal, and straightforward as Hux. She was...almost comforting to be around. He knew she felt the same towards him, after a fashion, just replacing _competent_ and _brutal_ with _unpredictable_ and _messy._

He nodded. “Thank you, Captain.”

“Just get your ass off the ship, Ren.”

He stood up and felt somewhat dizzy. He blamed the damned uniform collar. He shook it off and headed towards his quarters, pushing aside the door with the Force without bothering with the passcode.

A small part of him was disappointed not to see Hux waiting for him. Not to apologize, pledge his undying love. Kylo wasn’t completely delusional. But a quick fuck would have been nice.

To think that he and Hux were getting fucking _married._

He thought of Organa and the pilot’s horrified and disgusted faces when Hux had mentioned the marriage. Poe and Organa, who never should have been involved. Soon they would tell the entire Resistance—the whole galaxy, if they thought it could help their cause—and their private lives would be on display like some particularly lurid holoshow.

What could Hux have been thinking, inviting them? Moreover, why had Kylo even let him? Hux may have put a crown on his head and called himself Emperor, but Kylo obeyed him because he _wanted_ to obey. He was a Knight of Ren, not just some Emperor’s watchdog. Hux should fear _him._

The thought was empty and tasted of ash.

He called his lightsaber to his hand, but when it hit his palm the hilt felt _wrong_ and he remembered and—

_Rey._

Guilt and anger and fear and hate flooded into him and the Force rushed through him and he _pushed_ on his surroundings and the great dais at the center of the room that contained charred remains buckled, the durasteel—assured strong enough to withstand everything except turbolaser fire, he’d gleaned from Hux’s thoughts as he’d fucked him against it once—folding like metal foil. He pushed on the walls, testing his strength, and they groaned in protest. He wrenched them back into shape, grunting at the jolting feedback as the effort took its toll.

Angry, but not longer quite angry enough, Kylo grabbed the collar of his uniform and _pulled,_ ripping it free with in a single motion that would have horrified and physically pained Hux were he there to witness it. He tossed it aside, able to breathe.

 _Rey._ The thought hurt. He looked at the lightsaber in his hand—her lightsaber. Not Anakin Skywalker’s saber, their grandfather’s, but her own, crafted with skill and care. He could faintly feel her presence on it, like a vestige of perfume. It weighed heavy in his hands.

 

* * *

 

The first thing General Leia Organa did when she returned to the _Home One_ was return to her quarters and fix herself the hottest cup of tea the ship could manage. It was lukewarm and smelled of stale protein packs, but it was tea. She even secured herself a lump of synthsweet for sweetener, because really, what was tea without sugar? Then she cupped the plastisteel cup in her hands and curled up in her bunk with one of Han’s old jackets—a really ugly green one he’d briefly decided was a good idea—and fished her datapad into her lap.

There were over a thousand messages she needed to read and consider, probably at least 300 of those involving making decisions that could destroy lives. Maybe 100 of the less important ones she could delegate, but finding the person and instructing them in the requisite steps would take more time than doing them herself. Besides, delegating was a slippery slope—before she knew it, her intimate knowledge of the base’s operations would be gone. Things could get overlooked. People—good people—could die as a result.

Leia took a long pull on her tea and opened the first message. If she made it through 500 in the next three hours, she’d allow herself a half-hour break to listen to something relaxing. She’d been making it through all the old Alderaanian composers she’d half-heartedly studied in school. But she’d never heard any Takodonian rhythm blues, maybe she’d finally give that a try.

She set to work. That always put her mind off things.

 

* * *

 

Captain Phasma took another discrete sip from her chrome hip flask, cleverly disguised behind her thigh plate. She’d made the small containing pocket out of tape back when she was a mere lieutenant, and had seen no reason to give it up when she made Captain. Now she was third in charge in the Emperor Hux’s new Empire, in charge of all stormtroopers across the First Order forces, and doubted anyone would see fit to complain about it. Besides, to her knowledge, only one other person even knew of its existence.

She only ever drank off duty, and rarely at that. But its tiny weight was comforting, the metal heating up to her skin in a way her armor didn’t. It was dented and charred; it had once stopped a blaster bolt. She loved it inordinately.

Tonight was one of the rare nights she wanted more comfort from it than just its familiarity. She could recall only a few times she’d gotten actually drunk—and it took a lot more than the little flask could hold to get her drunk—the brightest of which was after her graduation from the Academy. Phasma smiled a little at the memory—her, a group of friends, sitting in on of their empty quarters, reminiscing about what they remembered of the glory days of the Empire, full of hope for the future.

Some of those hopes had been achieved. She credited this largely to the service of thousands of her men, but she had to admit that the instatement of Hux—in her thoughts, he was just Hux whenever she wasn’t annoyed with him—as Emperor were already taking the First Order in the direction Phasma personally thought better. Reallocating the budget away from idiotic superweapons like the Starkiller base—which he’d _finally_ seemed to begin to realize was a waste of fucking time—and towards their already effective fighting force. An increase in ration quality, finally overhauling the weapons upgrade system after years of Phasma and others nagging for its change, more aggressive recruitment measures.

The stormtrooper programme made the First Order strong. As long as Hux was loyal to them, Phasma would be undyingly faithful in return. They’d crush worlds under the Order’s fist. They already had.

The armistice was just another step in that plan. It was integral to the Order’s ability to thrive that a temporary peace be made, Phasma was well aware of that. She just sometimes wished it didn’t involve so much standing around in half-circles and talking.

There was a buzz at her door. Phasma tucked away her flask with care, rose to answer it with no small degree of irritation.

Hux stood in the doorway. He looked exhausted, but his uniform was somehow in perfect order. “Captain.”

“Emperor,” Phasma greeted in return. “I thought you had the beta shift?”

She wouldn’t have dreamed of getting the least bit drunk if she knew Hux was roaming around. It was a matter of professionalism.

“It just finished,” Hux said. Phasma sighed internally. Was it already that late? She was going to hit the gym at 0800 and it was already nearing 0300. “May I...speak to you?”

“Of course,” Phasma said, stepping aside to allow him in. Without his General’s hat he seemed shorter. His greatcoat, ever-present, was slung over his shoulders, as if to shield him from the late-cycle cold.

She gestured to the desk chair she never used. He accepted it gratefully, pulling an already well-depleted wine bottle from his coat and taking a dainty but healthy pull. Corellian wine. Cheap—affordable, Phasma knew he held himself to the same constraints as his officers—but effective. She knew he drank more than she did—not having to worry about dropping 50 kilos on your chest the next morning in the gym helped to encourage drinking. Though how he dealt with the hangovers, she didn’t know. Assuming he even got hangovers. Maybe he was always hung over. That would explain some things.

“Captain,” he began, and he didn’t sound at all drunk, but these things could be deceiving. “You know I trust and value your opinion.”

“I do.” It was a fact. Hux appreciated facts, so did Phasma.

“Then tell me. Am I an idiot?”

Phasma’s eyebrows raised of their own accord. “In general, sir, or speficially?”

Hux favored her with a smile, his lips curling in genuine amusement around his near-permanent expression of vague disgust. “Specifically. You know what about.”

Phasma sighed and dearly wished for her flask. “I’m not the best person to ask relationship advice from, sir. Even if you offer me wine.”

“I wasn’t offering it to you,” Hux told her. “You can get your own damn wine. I want your opinion. Kylo Ren.”

“Well I can’t comment from a political or diplomatic standpoint,” she replied. “But from where I’m standing, sir, the troops respect you. Especially as their Emperor—the changes you’ve made haven’t gone unnoticed. Kylo Ren...he’s no soldier, sir. I don’t think many troopers have any particular qualms about what you do with your personal life, but being close to him could...alienate some.”

Phasma hoped it wasn’t too blatantly obvious she was talking less about her troops than herself.

Hux nodded. Even halfway into a bottle of wine, Phasma could see his eyes narrow in thought, considering it. “Thank you.”

“May I be more blunt?”

Hux’s eyebrows raised. “Please.”

“I think it’s an awful idea. Ren can be unstable enough as it is. Conflating his role as Guardian and husband seems unwise.” She sat down next to her neatly arranged armor on her bed. “I apologize if this sounds harsh.”

“Not at all,” Hux murmured, and if he was lying, Phasma doubted he was too offended by it. In fact, she had to imagine he had considered it himself, all the eventualities: Ren falling out of love, or worse, falling too desperately into it, letting his critical duties slip.

“I’m not saying don’t have a relationship with him,” she clarified, even though this wasn’t strictly true. She personally avoided all relationships with people she was likely to have direct professional contact with. “Just nothing too....”

“Intimate,” Hux finished for her. “Fuck him if I must, but not love him?”

No point in denying it. “Yes.”

“Not much of a sentimentalist, are you,” he commented. There was a note of respect in his tone, if not a certain....wistfulness.

“Quite the contrary,” Phasma said with a mental snort. She hesitated. In a _fuck-it_ moment she decided to power through. It wasn’t like he didn’t likely already know: she couldn’t imagine her communication wasn’t being monitored. “A...long-term relationship of mine ended tonight.”

Hux’s sharp eyes may have softened slightly, if that was at all possible. “I’m sorry.”

“So am I.”

He offered the bottle. Phasma suspected that he might be drunk, but couldn’t particularly tell the difference between a drunk Hux and a sober one, other than a certain pinkness in his otherwise unnaturally pale skin. She couldn’t recall having seen him drunk before, even at the scant officer’s events. Whatever had happened in the conference room with Organa must have put significant pressure on him. A node of worry formed in the back of her mind.

Phasma put a sudden intrusive recollection of honeyed curls and dimples firmly out of mind and took the proffered bottle, taking a long, appreciative pull. It tasted like shit, and wasn’t as strong as her preference dictated, but it did the trick. She felt a sudden surge of warmth that she couldn’t quite put down completely to the alcohol or the sudden camaraderie. She handed the bottle back. Hux accepted it with a gloved hand and took another swig. Definitely drunk, she decided.

Getting drunk with the new Emperor, that’s apparently how she liked to spend her nights.

“Why don’t you ever take off your gloves?” she asked suddenly. “Even troopers aren’t in armor off-duty. I’m not.”

Hux observed his hand vaguely. “Habit, I suppose.”

Phasma recalled he was born and raised on a Star Destroyer. If she knew anything of his father, in uniform from a young age. Not unlike her stormtroopers. In fact, his upbringing was likely nearly the same as any of the troopers onboard the _Finalizer._ It humanized him to her: officers, she supposed, were people too, in their own way. And Emperors, too.

Hux stood abruptly and Phasma agreed that the conversation had come to its logical end. “Thank you, Captain,” he said, with a deferential nod.

“Any time, sir,” she said, and meant it.

Hux re-arranged his coat around his shoulders and left. Phasma returned to her flask, but did not drink. When she at last fell asleep, it was still nestled in her palm.

 

* * *

 

“I’m fine, really,” Poe said, wincing as he reached into the starboard engine housing compartment, twisting his elbow at new and exciting angles. “Hand me the microspanner, will you?”

The requested tool was nudged into his hand. BB-8 exploded into a series of furious beeps and whistles, rolling around in a complete circle in frustration.

“Hey, language, buddy!” Poe exclaimed, taken aback. He fixed the newcomer with a glare. “You’ve been teaching BB-8 that, haven’t you, you old fart?”

R2-D2 trundled back and forth on its treads and gave a coo that communicated exactly no guilt.

“I don’t care if you’re the one who handed me the spanner. You’re a bad influence and I won’t have it.”

R2 gave a lippy reply. Poe scowled. “Did I ask about how many times you’ve saved the galaxy? BB-8 and I have done the same plenty of times, you don’t hear me going around and— _hey,_ that was _one time—_ “

He kept bickering with the droids while he worked, well aware they were trying to distract him. BB-8 was often more in tune with Poe’s emotions than Poe was. Their concern was touching.

A thought occurred to him. “Hey, Artoo. Why didn’t you go with Luke and Chewie to search for Rey?”

R2’s cam swiveled down with a soft coo and Poe immediately felt bad. It was a sore topic, and he’d obviously blundered right into it. BB-8 twittered out a soft reply.

“That’s too bad,” Poe said, with real sympathy. “Look, don’t worry about her, guys. Rey can take care of herself. We don’t really know what happened, but I’m sure she’s okay. She’s just figuring things out.”

A quiet beep, from R2.

Poe sighed, a heavy sensation in his stomach. “Luke...he’s figuring things out, too.”

The truth of it was that no one had any idea what happened to Rey. The Resistance had received a tightly-worded transmission from the ship Rey had left for First Order space stating that she was alive, Snoke was dead, and so was the entire crew she’d left with. She offered her regrets and condolences to the families of the soldiers and said they had all died bravely. Poe had known the pilots and soldiers who’d gone with her; none of them had come back. She said she would return soon and asked that they not come looking for her.

Poe seemed to be the only one who thought they should respect her wishes on the last part. Luke sure hadn’t, and had disappeared with Chewie and the Falcon as soon as they’d intercepted the transmission.

That didn’t stop him from worrying about her, though.

He told himself Rey was her own person. If she wanted help, she’d ask for it. If time stretched on too long, or they got any sign she was in trouble, he was all for mobilizing all the search parties in the galaxy. Hell, he’d lead the effort himself. But where Finn immediately jumped to follow her to the ends of the galaxy—never give up on a friend, he’d said, especially not your first friend—Poe did not.

Still. A post card saying “Zeltros is the best vacation spot in the galaxy!” or “I’ve been to the Spiran spas four times this week, and I fucking deserve it for slaying the great evil scourge of the galaxy, see you soon!” wouldn’t have gone astray.

Poe imagined Finn’s horrified face as someone described the process of a pedicure to him and chuckled. Finn had only been gone since that morning but Poe already missed him. He missed Rey, too. With them, Jess, Chewie, and even Luke all gone—and the rest of Black Squadron called away on an emergency escort mission while he was on Bespin—the base felt very empty.

A worried string of beeps, from BB-8.

“Me? I’m fine, buddy.” Poe offered him a smile. “Don’t worry about me.”

R2 blarped out something.

“That is not bantha shit,” Poe said, managing less conviction this time. He dropped the microspanner; it fell on its delicate tines. Poe swore and R2 made a sniggering noise. “Listen, buddy—“

BB-8 cooed worriedly again.

“Listen I—I just don’t want to talk about it, okay?” Poe yanked his arm out from the engine housing and stooped angrily to retrieve the spanner. The tines were hopelessly misaligned—he’d have to get them sent to maintenance for recalibration. Sighing, he checked the time and nearly swore again. It was nearly 03000

“I’m going to bed,” he announced, fixing a vague glare on R2 that he knew the little droid didn’t deserve, which only made him more annoyed. He slammed the spanner down on the wing of his ship and headed angrily towards his quarters, BB-8 trailing dejectedly in his wake.

 

* * *

 

Hux accepted a steaming cup of caf wordlessly, making sure to appear attentive to the agreed upon ground rules Calrissian was laying out as he studied him. He was a bit older than Organa, graying, but his face had a downwards sort of cant that suggested a certain tiredness. A man not without influence—but not without pressure points. He was a good man, a leader, and had all the good man’s weaknesses. Hux had already heard of or met five of them: he was entirely certain that Lando Calrissian loved his daughters very much. His reason for choosing Bespin as the site of their armistice was twofold: Organa knew Calrissian, and would thus be more comfortable, relaxed, and because gaining leverage over their host was—historically speaking—all too easy.

“Are both parties in understanding?” Calrissian finished. Hux nodded his assent, keeping his expression frosty. Organa did likewise. He realized she’d already begun to tailor her mannerisms to him, a veteran communicator. He could run with that.

Each side read out their stipulations. Hux’s were simple but thorough: no cession of territory by the First Order, a rewording of the Galactic Concordat to remove all war reparation payments incurred against the Galactic Empire, a cessation of armament restrictions, reopening of all blocked trade routes to First Order worlds, the recognition of the First Order as a legitimate government, subject to treaties and due negotiation as all formal bodies within the New Republic were, though the Order would remain an entirely independent state.

Organa would not agree to all of these demands. But starting bold was crucial.

Organa demanded the Order formally adhere to the post-Empire Galactic War Conventions, re-ratified under the New Republic, that an inventory of the Order’s military strength be conducted by multiple independent auditors, that the military be demoted to a militia, subject to militia regulations, that the Order claim no further territories in the Unknown Regions or Outer Rim space, that they allow the Republic nominal access to the hyperlanes cutting through First Order space, and that records of all stormtroopers’ homeworlds and families be released to the Republic.

Hux barely suppressed his surprise at the last. Was Organa insane? Did she truly think he would undercut the anonymity of the stormtrooper programme by handing over useless details about the recruiting cycles? It was as pointless as it was presumptuous. He strongly suspected it was tacked on for show, to add a personal challenge. After all, after the Starkiller base, what was the Hux name’s greatest legacy?

Hux felt a disconnected swell of pride at his own accomplishments exceeding his father’s but put it aside. He formulated his response. “The re-opening of trade routes are the First Order’s priority. All other concerns are secondary and can be discussed later.”

Organa’s face tightened momentarily and beside her the pilot—Poe Dameron—glowered at him with something bordering on open hatred. Hux was well-aware Republic propaganda played him as a maddened super villain from a child’s cartoon, but he personally did not see how Dameron was any less unhinged than he supposedly was.

“Later,” Organa agreed, an unspoken promise hanging from her words. The identification of trade routes as a priority seemed like a slip, but Hux knew that even a cursory consideration of his position would identify it as crucial.

They launched into the discussion. It was tedious, at this point less about policy or any differing moral stance than both he and Organa attempting to downplay their own sides’ concessions so that they each could call upon the other to up their own compromises. Hux’s knowledge of the topic came to mind by rote—he’d studied the Galactic economy with great personal zeal his youth, taking great interest in identifying the key systems and markets the First Order would best dominate, plotting endlessly the Order’s victory against the Republic’s decaying, corrupt economy.

It was, admittedly, a rather niche hobby, but a logical outlet for a homebound child with very few consumable goods, little food, a mature understanding of the economic inequality between the Imperial remnant and the Republic, and a an equally strong drive for research and revenge. Obviously his findings had been updated to reflect the current markets, but Hux had kept tabs on key industries and markets, half in self-indulgence, half in preparation for the eventuality where it might be useful.

Organa was surprised, Hux could tell, but not taken aback. He imagined she had expected him to be militarily and politically competent, but otherwise lacking depth. He, for his part, was surprised by her engagingness, her charisma—she wasn’t without a certain wry humor, which she wove into the proceedings with great skill. Hux was grateful, after a fashion: he had braced himself for mind-numbing tedium but couldn’t blame Phasma when she excused herself to use the fresher and returned wearing her helmet, a clear sign that she was yawning behind it. If she had been Ren, he wouldn’t have been surprised if he had taken the opportunity for a short nap.

The proceedings paused for the first break, an hour or so for the participants to rest, eat, refresh. Hux wasn’t hungry, more on edge, so he excused himself to a secluded balcony. The Bespin air was fresh and dewey, a welcome relief from the aggressively dried, endlessly scrubbed air on the _Finalizer._ Hux breathed in a huge lungful, held it a moment, savoring the bright sunlight filtering across the clouds below, then exhaled. Oxygen was not rationed planetside. He took out a cigarette and lit it, taking a slow drag.

He had, he reflected, almost everything he had ever desired. He’d long thought about this moment, dreamed of it in the hazy early hours of the morning when he’d been at his desk for more than twelve hours, wondering what it would feel like, what harsh jubilation he would feel. He didn’t feel that. He didn’t feel much at all.

He took another drag, breathed out a soft cloud, watched the thinner clouds above cast crawling shadows on the clouds below.

“You come out for fresh air, just to smoke in it? Seems a little self-defeating to me.”

Hux turned. Leia Organa was approaching him, her gait casual but still unquestionably regal. There was a lopsided smile on her face that only ghosted in her eyes. She seemed so relaxed, even if it was just an affectation—she could not be any more different from her son, who stalked everywhere, stiff, arms held at his sides. Her eyes, Hux noticed, were dark pools, just like her son’s.

“A habit,” Hux said shortly. He would not explain himself. He did not need to.

She nodded, drawing up beside him a distance away that was not companionable, but confidential. She took a breath. “I understand that we...have some things personal in common.” she said. “Namely, my son. It would be best...I would _appreciate_...if we did not conflate these talks with our personal connection.”

Hux looked stubbornly onwards, again bringing his cigarette to his lips. “Of course.”

He had been a fool for telling Organa about the marriage proceedings. He’d been an even greater fool for mixing the professional and the personal. It had been a great blunder, and he was still unsure how he had even come to making it. It unsettled him to think that he had made such a mistake. He was a fool for viewing her as anything but a very dangerous enemy to be neutralized.

“Well, I’m glad that’s all sorted out,” she said dryly. It did not take a social genius to hear the ache in her voice; he doubted she was trying to hide it.

A moment passed. A tangle of words piled in the back of Hux’s throat but did not form into a sentence, so he said nothing.

The pilot called to Organa and she offered him a polite apology and left. Hux did not turn around to watch her go. The words stuck still in his throat, an uncomfortable lump. He looked out at the bright clouds for a few seconds, then flicked his unfinished cigarette off towards Bespin’s clouds and headed back to the deliberations room.

 

* * *

 

“Finn, stop worrying,” Jess said gently. “Rey is fine. So are Luke and Chewie. We’ll find them.”

“Worried? Yeah, sure, I’m not worried,” Finn said. He twirled the straw in his hand, fiddled with it, then put it back in his knock-off Corellian beer and took a hasty sip. It tasted terrible, but Jess seemed to like it and had bought it for him (with her own credits), so he felt bad making faces. Poe had given him beer from his homeworld, Yavin IV, and it had been lovely. Or maybe it was just Poe who was lovely. Or maybe it was the combined effect of alcohol, Poe and Rey being lovely, and Rey drinking Poe under the table. Literally. Finn had to carry him back to his quarters and help BB-8 tuck him into bed.

It was some Jedi thing, Finn had assured him the next morning. Poe had just groaned.

“You _look_ worried,” Jess said, raising an eyebrow. Finn made a ‘ _don’t-be-absurd’_ face and continued jiggling his leg. “Listen, Finn, you’ve got to trust Rey to—oh, there he is!”

Jess got out of her seat and pushed her way to the bar. Finn gratefully left his drink behind and followed suit, apologizing his way through an udulating sea of limbs and other digits and thick lights and smoke. He almost lost track of Jess a few times, but managed to stay close enough behind her to make it to the same destination. When he arrived at the bar, Jess was speaking to the red Twi’lek behind the bar, a tall guy with heavily tattooed lekku and short, stubby montrals. Finn felt rude staring, but couldn’t help but think that the inked designs were pretty much the coolest thing ever. The music and chatter was far too loud for Finn to make out what they were saying, even with his honed senses. He watched Jess’ lips, hoping to read them. She and the Twi’lek weren’t speaking Basic.

Not for the first time, Finn wished he had his stormtrooper helmet. The thing had its detractions, sure, but he missed the translator, not to mention the mini scrubbers that would have cleaned the air of what he was quite sure was vaguely hallucinogenic in nature.

  
After a few minutes of auditory torture, which Finn bore as stolidly as he could manage, Jess signaled their retreat over the noise. She pushed through the crowd even more quickly than last time, and this time Finn struggled to keep up.

“What happened?” he asked, once they’d exited the spaceport bar and were in breathable air and safe decibel levels again.

“They haven’t heard or seen Luke or Chewie,” Jess said, and Finn’s heart swooped downwards a little. She was walking very fast, marching almost, and he had to lengthen his strides to keep up. “So if they were here, they didn’t see anyone with the Resistance. So either they’re keeping this one close to their chest, or our Polis Massa tip-off was fake.”

Finn did not offer that there was a very real alternate interpretation, one that included a firefight and ended with a First Order detention center. “So, we uh, have to find another lead?”

Jess nodded. She seemed quiet all of a sudden, Finn wasn’t sure why. Maybe she was thinking the same thing he was: that the galaxy was very big, and that he was very small, and that maybe he wouldn’t find Rey and Luke and Chewie at all. And then what would he say? Sorry, General Organa, but I just couldn’t find your brother, the kriffing war hero? Sorry, Poe, the galaxy is just too big, looks like we’ll just have to wait and see if Rey can make it home on her own?

They wouldn’t say anything bad, he knew. The Resistance was not as hard on failure as the First Order was. But Finn was. He would not fail. He had a job to do, and he would see it done. And, deep down, he knew the Resistance expected as much.

He and Jess proceeded back to their docking bay in silence. When they reached the ship, Jess marched up the ramp and headed straight to the cockpit. Finn trailed behind, unsure. When he caught up she was punching buttons with furious speed and excess strength, biting down hard on her lip, her brows drawn down low.

Finn hovered behind the co-pilot’s chair. “Jess...are you okay?”

Jess finished keying in the orbit coordinates and the takeoff permit code, then slaved the ship’s control to the port for temporary takeoff command. Her motions were quick, practiced, abrupt. “Yeah, yeah, I’m good,” she said. “It’s nothing about Rey, or Luke and Chewie, the mission. It’s...personal. Don’t worry about it.”

Finn frowned. This was his first buddy mission with someone who wasn’t Rey or Poe, and buddy missions were a big deal in the Resistance. Like, a soul-searching, friend-making big deal. Finn really didn’t want to fuck up his first buddy mission. He also wanted to make sure Jess was okay. “Are you...do you wanna talk about it?”

Talking was good. People in the Resistance liked talking.

“Just a friend of mine,” she said. “We were, uh, buddies before I joined up formally. Well, we were actually girlfriends. I went to the Illenium system, and Kada—that’s her—she stayed on Dandoran. To help out there. Anyway, her parents, she never knew them, and she got a lead about them somewhere off-planet, and when she went to go after it she was recognized and shot down by a First Order blockade. She didn’t even make it out of atmosphere.”

“I’m so sorry, Jess,” Finn said, feeling wholly inadequate. It wasn’t his fault, he told himself. He didn’t shoot down Jess’ girlfriend—Kada, she had a name, that was _important_. He still felt guilty, anyways. “Are you going to be ok? I can fly if you need to take some time to think about things—“

“ _No_ ,” Jess said quickly, then aimed a shining-eyed smile Finn’s way. “No thanks. I appreciate the offer, but thinking about things is the _last_ thing I want to do right now, you know? I’ll fly. When we even know what we’re doing,” she added, a bit tiredly.

“If you need anything, just ask,” Finn said quietly, because when Poe had said that to him after he told him about shooting down his own squadmates, and it had felt pretty nice, to know that Poe was there. Rey had murmured that she’d fight him if he tried to blame himself, and then held his hand and hummed. That had felt good too, but he didn’t feel it was as appropriate for the moment.

“Thanks,” Jess said again, and Finn could tell she meant it. She shut her eyes, took a deep breath, opened them again. She looked more calm. “So were next?”

“Uh,” Finn said. “Good question.”

They stared out the viewport together. As they’d been speaking the ship had lifted off and had gently made orbit over Polis Massa.

“The planet looks like a potato,” Jess commented.

“It does,” Finn agreed. “A big space potato.” A thought occurred to him. “Poe was telling me about them. Did you know that some cultures use them to treat injuries? And another culture refuses to eat them because they’re _not_ mentioned in their religious texts. Isn’t that strange?”

“That’s pretty weird,” Jess agreed, her voice a little wobbly. “It’s also pretty weird Poe was telling you about potatoes.”

“I asked,” Finn admitted, feeling defensive. “I’d never seen one before! I wanted to make sure it wasn’t alive. Or offensive. I once picked up fried squid at a spaceport. It smelled really good, you know? Admiral Ackbar nearly fainted. Poe had to tell me. I felt terrible.”

Jess pushed down on a grin. “Sorry, that’s a little bit funny, if morbid. Did he recover?”

“The Admiral? Yeah, he was fine. Avoided me a bit for a few days after that, though.” Finn gazed out the viewport at the potato-planetoid, a bit sadly. Then a flash of genius struck him. “Maz! Why didn’t I think of that before? We have to go see Maz Kanata! She’ll know where they are.”

“Maz Kanata?”

“Takodana,” Finn said quickly, calling up the planet on the navicomputer. “Her castle is somewhere around...there.” He pointed to a spot on the hologram of the tiny world.

“ _Castle?”_

“You’ll understand when we get there,” Finn promised. He wasn’t sure of where this sudden confidence in Maz came from, but he was supposed to be learning how to trust his feelings more. “Maz’ll know what to do.”

 

* * *

 

Kylo hadn’t slept that night. Sleeping, more and more, meant facing down Snoke. Or rather, the absence of him. He’d always been there, a comforting pocket of weight at the back of his head, giving his emotions edge, heightening his connection to the Force. Staring into that empty pocket was like staring into the void.

So he meditated. Sat down in his loosest robes, settled, dulled his mind It was the closest he could get to rest without the contents of that void spilling out and parading themselves in his mind, vicious, vindictive. After a while he fell into a deep enough trance that the Force welled in him, filling him slowly with energy.

When he finally drifted back to reality, his body was horrifically stiff, his eyes and throat grainy, like they’d been sprinkled with sand. He felt drowsy, as if his mind hadn’t fully returned to his body. He blinked, and it took what felt like a million years. He twitched his fingers; they responded sluggishly. He took a deep breath, let it out. Clarity returned to his head, the pressure faded, he breathed easily, feeling the aches in his muscles from being in the same position for...he wasn’t sure how long.

There was a rustle from a distant corner of the room and Kylo startled, senses returning all at once in a deluge of sight, sound, smell, sensation—

“Hux?!” he exclaimed. “When did you—?”

Hux raised a single brow, fixing Kylo with the most regal look in his repertoire. “Approximately six hours, Ren. Ship’s log indicates you haven’t left this position in over 13.”

Kylo frowned. Had it been that long? Had he dropped down so deep he hadn’t even felt Hux enter the room? “Oh.”

Hux reshuffled a stack of flimsies, giving Kylo a scathing glare. He was wearing a loose black t-shirt and casual black pants and his skin was so pale it seemed to glow. His feet were bare and his hair had fallen from complete perfection to an artfully disarranged state. “I feel so comforted with you as my guard, Ren.”

Kylo glowered but did not argue. “If you were in danger I would have felt it.”

He did not mention that he had felt it when Hux had nearly passed out from exhaustion because he hadn’t eaten or slept properly in over 36 hours, or every time his adrenaline spiked because _that person is acting strangely what if they’re here to kill me._ Being a guard dog—a hound—came with a certain expectation of discretion. Especially since Hux couldn’t hide from him, even in his own head.

“I’m glad to hear it.” Kylo couldn’t tell if he was being facetious or not. Hux returned to his datapad, its bright glow lighting his face.

“Not now, Ren, I have work to do,” he complained as Kylo reached for him, but did not struggle. Kylo pulled him close and hugged him close, pulling Hux into his lap. Hux leaned back against his chest, snug against him, his head resting on Kylo’s shoulder. His hair, for once not ruthlessly styled, was soft to the touch. Kylo wanted to dig his fingers into it.

“You smell good,” Kylo murmured.

“If you just used regulation shampoo, you would too,” Hux returned drily. “Now be quiet, I’m trying to read.”

“Mmm hmm,” Kylo said, and shifted one of his arms to loop loosely around Hux’s waist. His figure was slender—more slender than Kylo remembered, had he lost weight?—and Kylo could feel his gentle pulse under his skin. Hux’s pulse was usually rather fast, but Kylo knew his presence calmed him down. _A safe harbor,_ he’d heard Hux think once, and he’d glowed about it for days.

He glanced over Hux’s shoulder and his stomach seized. A First Order intelligence profile on Leia Organa stared back at him. Kylo swallowed—

Hux sensed his discomfort and switched wordlessly to an analysis of the durasteel market.

“So, uh, the ceremony,” Kylo began, then stopped short. Hux shifted in his lap, his thoughts quickly submerging under his murky shields. Kylo nursed the hurt he felt, but bit his lip and said nothing. “Should we proceed?”

“Of course,” Hux said, a little too quickly, and Kylo felt a rise of anxiety that had little to do with no longer being able to read his thoughts. “Just after the armistice is signed. That has my full attention.”

“It’s just a few signatures,” Kylo mumbled, wanting to say it but feeling somehow badly about it. “It would be over in a few minutes.”

“Yes, yes of course,” Hux returned, a bit absently. Kylo didn’t need to be able to hear his thoughts to know he wasn’t really responding to what Kylo had said. The anxiety heightened, rising like bile in his throat.

With a sick, almost weighty feeling, Kylo swallowed the idea and reached to stroke his thumb over one of Hux’s perfectly prickly sideburns, regulation to the millimeter. The short hairs were bristly and almost completely uniform in length. Kylo wished he had that much control over his own hair. He was secretly convinced Hux had discovered some secret to controlling all his bodily processes. He was always perfectly smooth-shaven. It made his skin soft and the sideburns stand out more.

“Stop touching my face, Ren,” Hux said.

“Is there somewhere...else you’d rather me be touching?” Kylo asked lowly, nipping at Hux’s ear.

Hux’s ears went quite pink. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“As you wish,” Kylo said, and lifted the bottom hem of his black t-shirt up over his hipbones, tracing the hollows between his sweatpants and his skin.

Hux bit down on his lip and focused very loudly on his datapad.

 _You’re so pale,_ Kylo projected at him. _It makes you blush easily._

_—the dynamism of the industry remains constant, with evolving opportunities presenting themselves in the synthesis of a more durable plastisteel alloy in the next few galactic standard years—_

Kylo grinned. _And bruise._

— _with potential to revolutionize the current military and consumer goods market with durable, lighter materials, a major customer projected to be Kuat Drive Yards for use in their ultra-lightweight hulls for in-atmo flight—_

Kylo licked his lips and pressed them to the back of Hux’s neck, moving his mouth slowly over the soft skin, watching the few stray hairs at the nape of Hux’s neck lift with satisfaction.

“Fuck you, Ren,” Hux grumbled, shifting in Kylo’s lap and quite deliberately putting a not unwelcome pressure on his crotch.

 _I’m trying,_ Kylo replied, and Hux cracked a smile at that. This time, he didn’t pretend to continue reading. “You’re making this impossible, Ren,” he said. “I have the armistice to focus on—an empire, if you hadn’t noticed—”

“I’d noticed. Forget about it. Just for a while.” Kylo tightened his arms around Hux’s hips and pulled him more snugly against his own.

Hux let out a deep breath, obediently relaxing against Kylo, his eyes drifting closed. He felt tired, drained.

“I could make them sign,” Kylo offered into the silence. “The armistice.”

“I know,” Hux returned tiredly. “I know you can. But they’ll never accept it. They’ll keep fighting. The Emperor thought he could crush them. He couldn’t. I have to make it so that they can’t fight. They don’t want to fight. And I can only do that in peacetime.”

Kylo’s jaw tightened. “You didn’t always think this way.”

“You’re too confident in your knowledge of how I feel,” Hux told him coldly. His aura in the Force was icy, frozen to the touch and slipping out of reach. Kylo bit at his bottom lip. The bubbling panic that had ebbed back was rising with a vengeance. Hux, for his part, had tensed up again, abrasive stress rasping at his nerves. It made Kylo feel on edge, prickly, a bit angry. He opened his mouth to retort—

 _I can’t do this now,_ a stray thought of Hux’s said. Kylo couldn’t say he was looking forwards to where the conversation was headed, either, a foreboding weight looming over their heads, and unspoken, unacknowledged stormcloud in a bright sky.

“Another time,” Kylo said, his tone less commanding than whining. _Let’s just enjoy this,_ he added silently, to himself.

“Another time,” Hux agreed, some of the tension bleeding out of his body. Kylo felt a pang of despair at the thought that despite tuning into his thoughts for months, and all kinds of physical intimacy, he barely knew Hux at all. A flat sort of acceptance weighed on his chest. Maybe it was a good thing Hux was putting off the wedding. Maybe that’s _why_ he was doing it. Kylo couldn’t know.

Kylo held Hux curled in his arms, forcing his attention there, on their synchronized breathing, the tingling in his legs where Hux’s weight interrupted his circulation. Hux’s skin, usually cold to the touch, warmed slowly, until they were both radiating heat and contentment. Eventually Hux drifted to sleep, his head lying in the crook of Kylo’s shoulder. Kylo observed the easy ebb and flow of his breathing, admiring the way his translucent lashes caught the dim light. This was their safe harbor. Kylo told himself he would defend it to the last breath, even from themselves.

At last he too drifted off, grateful and temporarily content.

 

 

When Kylo Ren awoke, he felt the absence of Hux’s weight immediately. He stood, feeling his cramped muscles twang in protest. He blinked hard, wiping the sleep from his eyes, again disoriented. It had been the first good sleep he’d had since...well, Snoke. Longer than that, even. Time felt dilated, unstable. The small desertion raked at him, made his irritation flare.

He found Hux in the ‘fresher raking his hair into submission with the cold fury he reserved only for incompetence or bad hair days.

Hux glared at him in the mirror, giving a minor wince as his comb raked his scalp. He was already in full uniform, his coat and trousers and boots in perfect order. Even his gloves were immaculate. His greatcoat, almost no different than it had been when he was a general, lay pristinely on Kylo’s small cot. “ _Morning_ , Ren.”

Kylo knew he was on edge because of the armistice, but chose to rise to the bait anyways, feeling a hot prickle of anger risking on his skin. “I need to talk to you.”

“Not now.” Hux tilted a hand towards his datapad. “Could you fetch that?”

 _Fetch that._ Like Kylo was a dog or a maid. Grinding his teeth, Kylo raised a hand and floated it to him. Hux’s eyes flicked briefly towards the ceiling, as if annoyed Kylo would not lower himself to performing such a menial task without the Force. He smoothed his hair, now perfect, and adjusted his collar a micrometer. “We can talk later.”

“You always say that.”

Hux about-faced and fixed Kylo with his coldest glare. He wasn’t armed but the ruthlessness of his uniform, the sharpness of his cheekbones and his eyes, was dangerous. Kylo hated Hux’s uniform. It made him look like a soldier. Downplayed his features, made him look faceless, almost like a stormtrooper. It was a mask.

“I _said,_ later.”

Kylo felt his hands clench into fists at his sides and saw Hux glance at the motion, mentally taking the tiniest of steps back. Kylo took a deep breath, feeling his shoulders raise. Hux hadn’t been afraid of him for a long time. It was awful, intoxicating. The dark swept into him and he felt his power swell—if he wanted to, he could have torn a hole in the _Finalizer'_ s hull right then and there. “ _Now,_ ” he growled.

Hux’s face became impassive as china. He’d retreated so far under his mental shields even Kylo would be hard-pressed to tear him out. “Go ahead.”

“You’re being distant,” Kylo said. The air felt unbearably hot around him, his arms were shaking from the great angry power thrumming in his chest. Now that he’d started, all his fears, so carefully pushed down and squished from view were zipping through his mind at dizzying speeds. “You invited my—Organa, without telling me, asking me—all for what? To prove a point? That you’re better than me? Stronger? Because if you’ve already forgotten how wrong that is, I would gladly remind you.”

Hux watched him coldly, not a trace of a sneer on his face. His jaw was clenched so tightly his teeth were at liberty to break. “Noted.”

Kylo locked eyes with Hux. To his own surprise, Kylo did not rise to the bait. He had to get out of the room. He turned around and strode out of his own quarters, uniform be damned, in black fatigues and shirt. He didn’t feel like a Knight of Ren, and he didn’t feel like Hux’s guarddog. Without any uniform, without his mask, he felt profoundly naked, a nobody.

He tried to pretend a part of him was not disappointed when Hux did not call after him.

 

* * *

 

“Okay, if she says anything weird, it’s not my fault,” Finn said as he led her through a labyrinth of rubble towards a strange stone fortress covered in hundreds of flags from societies the galaxy over, some of them innocent, some of them sinister. Jess thought she saw a Black Sun insignia fluttering alongside a tattered Old Republic flag.

Jess pushed the door open and was immediately accosted by a bewildering array of swirling smells and sound, spices and species from the galaxy over. She immediately registered chatter in at least 5 different languages. A band in the corner was playing some of the best smooth synthjazz she’d heard in years with tired nonchalance. “Finn—“ she started.

“You again!”

Finn and Jess jumped. A small, great-goggled old woman leapt out from behind them, one finger extended in a universal scolding gesture.

“What took you so long?” she demanded of Finn, hopping on the table to stare him in the eyes.

“Uh…I….what?” Finn said, leaning precariously backwards in an attempt to keep his face away from the old woman’s. “Look, Maz, we’ve gotta find—“

“I know what you’re looking for,” Maz snorted. “And it’s not what you think. Besides, you won’t find her.”

“You know where Rey is?” Jess gasped. Who was this woman, and why did she seem to know Finn? This was the furthest watering hole on the edge of the galaxy—what business did this woman have knowing the location of Rey Antilles-Skywalker when no one else seemed to?

“Of course I do,” Maz said. “She told me. You’re not going to find her. No one is. Give up now.”

“Excuse me?” Jess planted her knuckles on her hips. “We’re her friends. We’re going to make sure she’s okay.”

Maz raised her brows, reaching up and lifting her goggles off her face, peering into Jess’ face. “Who’s she?”

“What, you don’t know that already?” Finn asked testily, then glanced around nervously. They were attracting some attention, but not too much real interest. “Her name’s Jess.”

Maz chuckled. “I’m not omnipotent, Stormtrooper. Just close.”

“The name’s _Finn_ , not stormtrooper,” Finn said.

“And a good name it is, indeed,” Maz said, whipping back around to face him. “But probably not your original name.”

Finn’s eyes narrowed. “My what?”

“Your original name. The name your parents gave you.”

Finn’s eyes widened just a little and his expression softened. “Are they…do you mean...could they still be alive?”

“How am I supposed to know?” Maz demanded, but with less edge than before. “I’m afraid that’s for you to figure out, kiddo.”

“But how?” Finn asked, and Jess felt a stab of sadness, thinking of all the times she’d heard the same thing from Kada. Late at night, whispered in her ear, “ _What if they’re out there, Jess? What if they’re waiting? How could I even find them?_ ” To hear it from Finn, who’d been stolen away from his…

Maz shrugged. “I wish I knew, Finn. I really do. But it’s up to you. What you decide will determine a great many things.”

“I need to find Rey,” Finn said stolidly. “That’s the most important thing. You know where she is. Can you tell us?”

“Nope.” Maz sat down on the table and plucked a small fruit off the table and popped it into her mouth.

“Why not?” Jess demanded.

“I promised not to,” Maz replied simply. “Surely even you impatient people can understand. You’ll find Rey when she wants you to, and not a second before or after. So you can stop glaring at me like that,” she added, mostly for Jess’ benefit.

“Then do you know where Luke Skywalker and Chewbacca are?” Finn asked.

Maz waved an impatient hand. “So many questions. You’re not paying attention. That’s not important right now. What’s important right now—“ she pointed a finger directly at Finn’s nose, “—is you.”

“Me?” Finn repeated, looking shocked.

“What, you see any other excitable ex-stormtroopers in this bar?” Maz said. “Yes, you. You’re it, kiddo. You’ve got a decision to make.”

Finn opened his mouth, thought better of it, then turned to Jess and mouthed, “ _Me?_ ”

“Your decision,” Maz continued, pulling Finn back around to face her, “is this: find your birth parents, wherever they might be in the galaxy, or continue to serve the Resistance.”

Finn stared at her. “I can’t—I can’t just abandon them!”

“Who? Your parents, or the Resistance?”

Finn blinked. Stared. “I…I’m not sure…”

Maz shook her head. “You need to give up worrying about Rey. She’s doing fine on her own. You should be worried about finding you.”

“Well if that isn’t delightfully cryptic,” Jess grumbled, feeling a spark of annoyance on Finn’s behalf. “Can’t you at least give him a break? A clue? Something?”

Maz threw up her hands in an affectation of frustration. “Why do you people think I know everything? I just happen to know a lot more than you do. That doesn’t mean I can just pull out my crystal orbs and divine where two of the trillions in this galaxy happen to be at a given time. I don’t even know if they’re still alive.”

Finn’s gaze dropped to the floor. “She’s right. The galaxy’s huge. With Rey, at least we know who we’re looking for. My parents….they could be anyone.” His lips pressed together into a downturned line. “Without them I’m never going to be... _normal_.”

“Bullshit,” Jess interjected savagely. Finn looked up at her. “Bullshit,” she repeated again. “Who gave birth to you has nothing to do with what kind of person you are. That has everything to do with you. And you’re a lovely person, Finn. You’re kind and brave, and tough as hell, and if you ask me you’re worth more than half the people out there put together. If finding your parents means something to you, do it. But if you don’t, it doesn’t change anything.”

“The lady makes a good point,” Maz agreed, aiming an approving nod Jess’ way. “Therein lies your choice. Search for your parents before it’s too late, or stay with the Resistance.”

Finn took a deep breath, clearly overwhelmed. “I have to see Rey first,” he said. “Making sure she’s okay is more important than finding people who don’t even know I’m alive, or who could be dead themselves. I’ll wait as long as I have to until she’s ready for us to find her. I don’t care if it takes years. I’ll be there.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Maz said, tossing Finn a beer, which his quick reflexes barely managed to catch. “Hey, speaking of which, if you happen to run into Chewbacca and Luke while you’re rattling around the galaxy, tell them to give me a visit, okay? I’ve uh…got something to tell him. Them.” She took a heavy swill from he own bottle, then tossed one to Jess.

Jess opened it with her gloved hands and took a polite sip. Her eyes widened. “This is good.”

“Ni’quaad ale, brewed locally on Takodana,” Maz told her, finishing off her bottle in one long swig. “I can get you a whole case for a real steal. Just say the word.” She hopped off the table and looked up expectantly at them. “Well, is that all?”

“Yeah,” Finn said quickly, before Jess could say anything. “That’s great. A lot. Plenty. For a lifetime.”

Maz shrugged. “Any time.”

 

* * *

 

“You don’t look well, sir,” Phasma said, slowing her strides slightly to match the Emperor’s. “Is everything optimal?”

“Quite, Captain,” Hux said briskly. He hadn’t looked up from his stack of flimsies since greeting her. He looked on edge, tense, his gloved hands curling and unfurling idly at his sides, the dark rims under his eyes making him look even more pale.  
  
”I’m glad to hear it, sir,” Phasma returned neutrally. She was willing to bet her (substantial) backlogged shore leave that his tension had more to do with Kylo Ren than the armistice proceedings. Some days, she really wanted to beat some sense into that overgrown man-child. The general—emperor—truly deserved better.

She was quite sure Ren knew her opinion of him. The only shred of respect she held for him was due to the fact that he hadn’t yet killed her in a fit of rage for it.

“If there’s anything I can do to help, sir, give the word,” she finished, thinking longingly of kicking some sense into Ren.

Hux aimed a nod her way, stepping into the turbo that would take them to the main hangar bay. “Acknowledged.”

Phasma nodded in return, following suit. She hoped the emperor knew that she would gladly die for him. There had been a time where she would not have been as willing. But Hux was no longer the same person she doubted, and she was no longer the doubter.  
  
How Ren felt was...unclear. That was what worried her, why she wished Hux would accept a contingent of her best troops as his guard rather than the malleable man-child. She was well-aware none of her troops were even nearly as powerful or dangerous as Ren, but they were disciplined, diligent and trained in a way Ren would never be. Together, and only together, they forged into a fanatically loyal team capable of handling any threat. They would never buckle, never squabble, never doubt, ever-reliable. She knew she at least would sleep better at night knowing they, not Ren, were guarding the emperor—and by extension, the entire Empire.

To her, a loyal and diligent trooper was worth a thousand Kylo Rens.

She knew she could not expect Hux to share her point of view. But she also could not help be a little disappointed. He was, after all, the great champion of the stormtrooper programme. It seemed only fit he trusted the products of his efforts to safeguard his life.

The ride down to Bespin was a deadly quiet, uneventful one. Ren, again, did not join them, likely in deference to Organa. Phasma and four other troops escorted the Emperor to the deliberations room. Phasma greeted the Republic’s representative, one of Calrissian’s daughters, then sent the troopers off to guard the perimeter.

Once she was sure they were monitoring the right route, Phasma settled into parade rest, alert but comfortable.

“You make standing like that look so easy,” Calrissian’s daughter said a few hours later, shifting in place with a wince. “How aren’t your hips killing you?”

Phasma gave a half-smile under her helmet. “My troops can withstand anything. So can I.”

“C’mon,” the other woman wheedled, humor shining in her brown eyes. “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t do anything for a bit of a walk. Or a chair.”

Phasma _would_ have liked to stretch her legs a bit, but she could hardly admit that. It had been a long time since she’d done guard duty, and it was every bit as strenuous as she’d remembered it, standing still in once place, senses on high alert, staring at nothing for hours on end—a nothing that could easily morph into a threat in any second. “I’ll admit no such thing.”

“But you _do_ agree,” the girl—Phasma vaguely recalled her name to be Allaya, but she found non-designation names to be difficult to rember—said triumphantly. “You military types can pretend all you want that you’re impervious to all weakness, but at the end of it all you’ve got joints and tendons just like the rest of us.”

“Wrong,” Phasma said, the quip leaping out of her mouth unbidden. “We train all weaknesses out of our soldiers from birth. _Especially_ joints and tendons.”

Allaya grinned, running a hand through her light brown natural hair. It bounced back into place. “Was that a joke? Did I just get a joke out of the legendary Captain Phasma, scourge of the Resistance?”

Phasma liked to think herself impervious to flattery—and small talk—but _scourge of the Resistance_ did have a certain ring to it. “You absolutely did not.”

“Totally did,” Allaya muttered, but did not push further, falling back into professional silence. Phasma put recollection of brown eyes and soft curls out of her mind and settled back into parade rest, the ache in her knees be damned.

 

* * *

   
Leia accepted a cup of caf from Poe, tucking her datapad into her synthskin case and arranging her notes on the table.

“What do you think, general?” Poe asked in an undertone, throwing a glance at Hux, who was smoking outside. “Is it going well?”

Leia took a long sip of her caf before responding. “Better than expected, actually,” she said. “Hux is more reasonable than I’d guessed. Demanding, and a damn sight better negotiator than you’d think, but we’re getting somewhere.” She aimed a smile at Poe’s serious face. “Another week and I think we’ll have the armistice between us and the Order, and I can hand him off to the Republic delegates to pursue a formal peace treaty. The process will be a long and bureaucratic one, but there’s a real chance we’ll get there.”

Poe didn’t look convinced. “It’s a real opposite of the screaming maniac who blew up the Hosnian system to prove a point,” he said.

“It could be he’s no longer playing Snoke’s puppet,” Leia suggested, feeling oddly defensive. “It doesn’t make his crimes right, and I hope he faces justice for them some day, but it could explain the change.”

“Or he’s just playing a new role,” Poe said quietly, his voice barely above a murmur. He looked deadly serious, dark rings of worry and sleeplessness around his eyes. Leia’s chest tightened, her old worries surfacing instantly. Was she disrespecting everything she no longer stood for, the whole of Alderaan, by even sitting at the same table as the Starkiller, the butcherer of an entire system? And worse yet, drawing up a treaty that might—would—allow him to escape unpunished? Or was she simply being manipulated?

“Poe,” Leia said, “is there something I need to know?”

Poe glanced at the Starkiller again, then back to her. “Not yet,” he said in an undertone. “But I’m...I’ll look into it.”

She nodded, pretending to be engrossed in her files as a stormtrooper passed the window. “Let me know what you find,” she said.

Poe nodded once, then got up and left. Leia watched him go, hoping fervently that this wasn’t taking too high a toll on him.

“General Organa?”

Leia startled out of her thoughts, turning to the source of the sound. The Starkiller stood at the opposite end of the table, his greatcoat thrown over his shoulders and his hands clasped in front of him. His expression was polite, his eyes not as piercing and watchful as they had been when they had first met. “Yes?”

“Would you care to accompany me to lunch? Governor Calrissian assures me that he can arrange for food to be brought here.”

Leia guessed he wanted to see her in a more apolitical context, to understand how she thought. Two could play that game. “Of course,” she replied, rising from her chair and stepping towards the door. “May I suggest we eat outside? It seems a waste of fresh air not to.”

Hux nodded with what could have passed for a smile. Leia pushed away her nagging, nauseating doubt and forced her mind to the task at hand. She had a job to do, and she would damn well do it.

 

* * *

 

Poe paced outside his X-Wing, feeling unaccountably angry. There was something that turned him off about “Emperor” Hux, and it wasn’t just the fact he was marrying Kylo goddamn Ren. His mutability, perhaps—one didn’t simply go from the spitting, crazed fascist that screamed about the “last days of the Republic” to a benevolent dictator concerned only for his peoples’ creature comforts.

He had to be lying about the armistice. Tyrants didn’t suddenly give up and sue for peace, and they definitely didn’t roll over and de facto ask to join the Republic. But what did he stand to gain from wasting time on a treaty? They hadn’t seen unusual activity with the First Order’s supply lines, so he wasn’t even taking the respite to build up stores. Were they building another Starkiller? Was this all a complicated ruse to hurt the general—personally, or politically? Anything was possible.

He had to find out. How, he wasn’t sure. But he couldn’t return to the general until he had some form of evidence, lest he sound completely crazy. She had of course listened to his concerns and considered them, but there was nothing she could do. If she dropped out of the talks for no apparent reason, the press on both sides would have a fucking field day. He could almost imagine the ‘emperor’ giving a speech about the Resistance terrorists refusing peace beyond all reason.

Poe’s commlink blipped. “Yeah?”

“ _Poe, it’s me_ ,” Finn’s voice said, and relief washed over Poe in a physical wave to hear his voice.

“Finn,” he said. “What’s up?”

“ _We didn’t find Rey,_ ” Finn said, and Poe could hear the dejection in his voice even over the comm’s tinny speakers. “J _ess and I are headed back to base. Stuff...stuff happened. We’re ok, don’t worry_ ,” he added immediately as Poe’s anxiety spiked.

“Good,” Poe breathed, and BB-8 cooed in agreement. “When are you arriving?”

“ _Soon_ ,” Finn replied. He couldn’t give specifics, so the location of the base couldn’t be triangulated by their trajectory and the estimate alone, but Poe knew that meant an hour or less.

“See you,” Poe said, and wished he could tack a quick _love you_ on the end.

“ _See you_ ,” Finn replied. Poe wished he could take Finn’s voice and tuck it into his heart. He couldn’t blame Finn for missing Rey. Her absence while training with Luke had been hard on the both of them, and he felt her current absence with a physical, missing ache.

 

* * *

 

“The natural sunlight is beautiful, but it can be very exhausting,” the emperor commented, cutting his nerf steak with surgical precision. He still wore his gloves; Leia wondered if he ever took them off. She wondered if Ben took his off, if he took off that mask, or whether he’d stifled even that tenuous link to his parents: his own face, so like Han’s and her own.

“Are you not from a sunny world?” Leia asked, pushing thoughts of Ben away. They strayed like cobwebs, persistent. What did Ben see in Hux, that he would agree to marry him? He wasn’t the same person she’d raised, but she’d always thought he’d end up with someone more...dynamic. Adventurous. Ben could never sit still, never stand by while Hux did paperwork...while _she_ did paperwork. He needed attention, sorely, so painfully insecure. Had that been Snoke? Or his age? She doubted she would ever know.

Had Hux given that to him? The reassurance that she had never been able to give?

Hux chuckled, taking Leia a bit by surprise. He had shown little to no emotion during the entire proceedings, even during the...misunderstanding at the beginning of the accords. She wondered if he was actively trying to be charming, or whether his robotic persona was meant to be professional, or some strange combination of both. Her cynical side suggested he was trying to be manipulative, play on her personal angle—on Ben.

If that was his tactic, it was a wise one. But Leia would be damned if she let herself fall for it.

There was, the tiniest, most naïve part of her added, the possibility that he was beginning to realize the very painful truth: it was lonely at the top. No matter if he built an empire and returned his worlds to peace and ruled with an iron fist—even defeated the Resistance—as long as he held absolute power, he would be absolutely alone.

She was, after all, learning that same truth herself. The longer the war went on, the more she lost, the more alone she became. Alderaan, her family, Ben, Han, Luke, Lor San Tekkla, Rey—

“Not at all,” Hux said, giving her a welcome reprieve from her thoughts. “Arkanis was a watery hell-hole. A starship, at the other extreme, does not allow much sunlight either.”

“I’m afraid I can’t relate,” Leia replied, sipping a spoonful of her Rafasian noodle-stew. “Alderaan was beautiful.”

Hux’s expression twitched at the mention of her dead homeworld. Leia herself pretended her breath hadn’t hitched a bit in her chest at hearing the name in her own voice. She’d mostly mentioned Alderaan to take the card away from him—to show she wouldn’t be cowed by the threat of their pasts, as well as to gain his trust—he had to imagine he’d be more comfortable around her if she didn’t seem to be wild for revenge for his crimes.

His reaction was interesting, at any rate. She noted it and filed it away for later.

“Bespin City’s stratospheric location intensifies the sun,” he added pointlessly, not meeting her eyes.

For a moment she was tempted to chase the point, to keep confronting whatever he was feeling at the mention of the dead world—whether guilt or fear or some misguided sense of breached decorum, but she let it slide. The point was not to alienate him: if she did that, he might back out of the armistice and the war would continue.

“Tell me about the First Order worlds,” she said suddenly, on a hunch. “The Republic hasn’t had much contact with those worlds since the beginning of the Clone Wars.”

He claimed that his economic concessions were to aid the suffering of his people. She hadn’t been sure how sincere that had been, whether he actually cared about his subjects or whether he was using the ordinary citizen as a cover to rebuild the First Order’s economy for war, or some combination of both.

Hux offered her a thin, entirely predatory smile. “Most worlds still have pre-Clone Wars infrastructure. Typical poverty rate by First Order standards is around sixty-three percent, by galactic standard more like seventy-eight to eighty-two percent. The typical family would have just about seventeen Republic credits to live on per week, but before the First Order began to regulate the surviving Imperial banks there was rampant inflation that weakened the Imperial currency almost to zero against the Republic credit. During that time there was mass starvation and a loss of workforce that most worlds are still recovering from. Most farming worlds are unable to provide even for themselves, so food must be forcefully redistributed.

“Food is at a great premium. Most go their entire lives without having tasted three meals a day. Few consumer goods are smuggled from the Republic, and most local manufacturers don’t have the demand or excess capital to turn resources into comfort items. All this taken into account, it’s not surprising many families give up their children to the stormtrooper programme, hoping to secure them a better future.” Hux took another bite of nerf steak. “Or at least a future where they won’t starve.”

Leia held his gaze coolly. She’d seen her share of poverty under the Empire, and experienced its devestation at the lowest points of the Rebellion. But she couldn’t say she’d lived it as intimately as Hux claimed the First Order worlds were. And the vitriol with which he spit out his words, each perfectly formed and punctuated with bitterness, was almost assuredly genuine.

Hux was angry, genuinely angry. It was one of the first emotions she’d seen him let himself express. That suggested that it was personal—she would be willing to bet he was raised in the same poverty he described.

“I didn’t realize the situation was that dire.” she offered simply.

“That goes for many things.” Hux replied.

Leia felt a deep throb in her chest at the barb, along with a stab of outrage. The self-proclaimed Emperor was in no position to say such a thing—to say anything at all. “This isn’t about Ben.”

“But it is.” There was not a trace of mockery in Hux’s tone. He met her eyes levelly. “You agreed to talk to me personally in order to get insight into Kylo Ren. To attempt to understand what the man who was once your son could possibly see in a monster like me. ‘The Starkiller,’ as I believe I’m known.”

“Can you blame me?” Leia had forgotten about her noodles, about their surroundings, her vision tunneling only to Hux, his unmoving, emotionless face. Her heart was beating faster; she felt on edge, off kilter. Hux had won, she was off balance. She could only hope—or ensure—that he was, as well.

“Not at all.” Hux had neglected his steak as well. “You care for him. After all he’s done to you.”  
  
”Wouldn’t you?”

“If Kylo Ren betrays me, I’ll kill him. He knows this. So should you.”

Leia felt her teeth grinding. First Snoke, that manipulative, sneaking bastard, now Hux, the sniveling, jumped-up general who thought himself above it all. “If the message of this conversation is that Ben is _yours_ and that I should fuck off, I have nothing more to say to you.”

Hux gave a small huff of frustration. “You misunderstand, general. I think Kylo Ren needs you very much. Just not in the way you or he thinks he does.”

This did little to cool Leia’s ire. “And what do you think he needs, _general_?” she asked, purposefully using the lower rank. “What makes _you_ qualified to say what’s best for him? Between me and my _son_? I’d love to hear it.”

She was shaking. He’d gotten under her skin. It was obvious, as well as inevitable. She felt like a hotheaded teenager all over again, firing off insults and sarcasm at Tarkin’s sneering face to hide the real terror she felt fluttering in her gut at the sight of Alderaan, a vulnerable globe floating in the viewport—its mantle crumbling as the annihilating beam shattered its core and extinguished all life in seconds—at Han, to stave off the terror that _some dark, ancient creep is messing with our son—_

Before he could even offer a response Leia pushed back her chair and stood jerkily, about-facing and starting angrily towards the door, fighting to keep control.

“General, I—“ Hux broke off. Leia whirled around,

“You what?” It was taking all her self-control not to yell, or cry, or to _get the hell out_ of that room, because she would not bear to see another high-cheekboned asshole threaten her family.

“I’m sorry,” the emperor said, haltingly, as if the words were rarely on his lips and he’d forgotten how to say them. “I overstepped my bounds. I regret being so insensitive.”

Not the most heartfelt of all apologies, but Leia had a feeling the man was genuinely doing his best. Some of the tension leaked out of her shoulders; she was being irrational, angry. “Accepted,” she said, and, exhaling slowly, took the seat opposite him again.  
  
"Your son needs you,” Hux said again, and even though there was no one in the galaxy Leia currently trusted less, relief and validation poured over her at his words. It was so easy to doubt, to tell herself that Ben was gone, that Kylo Ren needed only those he’d chosen now, that he was as lost to her as Han.

He was being honest. While his motivations on the peace accords felt murky, shifting, indistinct, his intentions now rang clear with concern.

“I had thought getting rid of Snoke would be enough,” he told her, quietly. “I had hoped, at any rate. But I feel as if...it’s not over. Not for him. There’s something holding him back. From moving on.”

Leia thought back, dizzily, to those early days, when Snoke was just a whisper, an occasional headache, a spectre that would sometimes wake Ben crying at night. At least, that’s what she had seen. How he’d managed to make his influence so pervasive was still a mystery to her. She kicked herself every day for not seeing his influence clearly, for not recognizing the severity of the threat.

A threat that, if Hux was to be believed, was still present. “Do you mean...Snoke is still...alive?”

Hux shook his head. “Obviously I am not the most qualified to tell, but I don’t think so. I don’t know what it is that’s bothering him. But something is.”

“Would he...” Leia was keenly aware she was vulnerable, that Hux could still be taking advantage. “Would he agree to speak with me?”

 _I haven’t spoken to him since he was 15._ She had to know. Did anything of Ben still remain? Or had Snoke stripped him of everything that had been her son?

Hux winced, and Leia’s heart fell. “Probably...not,” he offered at last. “He was not pleased that I sought to include youin the wedding proceedings. Which, I may add, are on hold.” His tone held a tinge of blame and bitterness. Whether it was directed at her or himself, she could not tell.

Leia felt an odd swirl of emotion at these words, pity and heartache and anger and resentment and fear all mixed together so as to be indistinguishable from each other.

“What can I do?” she asked. Above all, she was a problem-solver. And solving problems sometimes meant putting emotions away and focusing on the facts of the situation at hand. She’d been doing it all her life—it was her greatest strength as a crisis manager. And what was war other than a constant crisis?

“At the present?” Hux’s face twisted apologetically. “Very little. He refuses to see you.’

There was more, Leia could read in his eyes. Kylo was cutting him off, too. She refused to let herself feel sorry for him. She said simply, “When he’s ready, I’m here.”

 

* * *

 

As soon as Finn and Jess’ ship landed and the landing ramp cycled down, Finn flew down it and began speaking very quickly and very anxiously about Rey, Maz Kanata, his parents. It was the best Poe could do to get the gist of it. Finn wasn’t like this, always militarily precise—he must have been very upset.

“How am I going to find them?” Finn asked finally, once he’d finished telling his story. “They could be anywhere. _Anywhere_. I don’t even know their names. Or what world I’m from. They don’t tell us that stuff, all you’ve got is your designation, your armor, and your blaster, and even those are cycled out monthly. And what if they’re dead?”

“Calm down, buddy,” Poe said, laying a hand on Finn’s shoulder. “We’re gonna figure something out.”

“And Rey,” Finn finished miserably. “Maz said she…she’s not ready to see us. What happened? We shouldn’t have let her go alone. I mean I get she’s the most powerful person in the galaxy but like…backup man! And what if she’s hurt—“

“Woah, slow down,” Poe said, taking Finn’s other shoulder and staring him in the eyes. “Listen, Finn, I know you’ve gone through a lot recently, and I get that you’re freaked out. But believe me when I say there’s nothing we could have done for Rey. We would have been a liability, something for Snoke to use against her. She’s alive, and dealing with things, and that’s what matters. We’ll be there when she needs us, okay?”

Finn nodded, still biting at his lip, not meeting Poe’s eyes.

“Okay, buddy?” Poe repeated.

Finn looked up, nodded again, took a deep breath, let it out. “Okay.”

Poe looked around, saw no one, then said, “Listen, Finn. I’ve got an idea. It’s probably not a good idea but…it might work.”

Finn hesitated. Then, squaring his shoulders, he said, “Tell me.”

 

* * *

 

“Ren,” Hux began, in his calmest of tones, “I need to speak to you.”

Ren did not budge, frozen still in his cross-legged meditative pose, facing deliberately away from Hux. His posture was stiff, unwelcoming. It was plain to Hux that his message would not be received. Ren had a certain refractory period in between his moods, and there had obviously not been a long enough time passed for him to be receptive to logic again.

Hux opened his mouth, then shut it. Words refused to string themselves together to form sentences; he felt adrift, usually buoyed by the words and elocution that came so easily. “Ren—“

“No need,” Ren interrupted. He was using his _peeved_ tone of voice, Hux’s least favorite mood to deal with him in. Something between childish and angry. “I can hear what you’ve been thinking for the past five minutes. Thinking how _best_ to say it.”

Hux spluttered internally, unsure of how to reply. “I do generally aim for the best presentation—“

“There _is_ no good presentation for what you were about to say,” Ren snarled, and Hux tamped down a flare of annoyance. Couldn’t he at least let him speak his piece before making up his mind? “I need to see my cousin.”

“What?” Hux said blankly. “Skywalker? What could she possibly—Ren, don’t be ridiculous—“

“You don’t understand!” Ren shouted, jolting to his feet. Hux took an involuntary step back, swallowing reflexively. Ren’s eyes darkened. “Stop doing that. I hate it when you do that.

“Do what?” Hux asked guardedly, a sense of danger pulsing steadily in his chest.

“Be afraid of me,” Kylo whined, stepping closer—too close, Hux thought, not when he was in this kind of mood. Such thoughts would anger him. Hux drew his mental shields close, muting his thoughts. “And stop doing _that_ ,” Ren continued through his teeth. “Stop hiding your thoughts. Why do you _do_ that?”

“Maybe because I like some privacy inside my own skull?” Hux fired back, the urge to argue too strong.

“You just don’t _understand_ ,” Ren growled. “What it’s like to be thrown out. To be _feared._ Constantly. Even by you.” He clenched a fist; Hux watched it nervously. “Especially by you. You...you never used to be afraid. What changed?”

Dizzy panic flared in Hux’s chest, pushing up towards his throat, constricting his larynx, along with it, helpless anger. “Take a guess, _Kylo_ ,” he snapped, dropping his shields and thrusting the memory brutally to the forefront of his mind.

Ren took a step back, his dark eyes wide, his mouth suddenly tremulous. He swallowed, his breathing coming in quick and shallow, like a trapped animal. He stared blankly as if watching the scene unfold before him; he shook his head. “No. Stop that,” he said, his voice breathy, scared.

“You need help, Kylo,” Hux snapped, assured once more, victory again in sight. “General Organa—“

“I don’t want _her_ help!” Ren shouted, terror and guilt replaced by anger. “She can’t help me! You can’t help me, either! Only Rey—“

“And why would _she_ have any _interest_ in helping _you_?” Hux demanded, a sneer coming onto his face. His heart was pounding; he felt the same sort of muted exhilaration he of pressing a dangerous enemy fleet, a cruel thrill at destruction.

Ren’s face flickered a brief expression of hurt that was rapidly replaced with a mask of fury. “You don’t understand—you weren’t—that’s none of your business! Fuck you!”

Hux gave Ren his coldest, calmest sneer. “All articulate and valid points, Ren. Insisting your opponent ‘does not understand’ repeatedly is a _fine_ rhetorical tactic—“

His words abruptly cut off in his throat, along with his breath. Hux clenched his teeth, burning with helpless fury, panic fluttering as his lungs began to burn—he glared at Ren, a long black shadow, blazing with hate, refusing to scrabble at his throat and _plead_ in his thoughts to be released—

The chokehold broke abruptly and Hux sucked in a great breath, coughing and clutching his aching chest. His head hurt, his vision swam, his skin felt very cold and his skin tingled—

“Hux—“ Ren tried, his voice cracking. He took a clumsy step forward; Hux stumbled back. “Hux, I’m sorry, I—I didn’t mean—I just got angry—“

“Get out,” Hux rasped, his vocal chords painful at the use. He needed water. He needed air. He still felt dizzy, his ears ringing shrilly.

“ _Hux_ —“ Ren tried again, more desperately. “I’m _sorry—_ “  
  
"Get _out.”_

Tears welled in Ren’s eyes; Hux could not bring himself to feel anything at the sight. “ _Please—“_

 _GET OUT!_ Hux screamed at him, and Ren flinched. _GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT OF MY SIGHT_

Ren stumbled away and through the door, leaving Hux alone in his quarters for the second time. As the door whisked shut Hux caught on his lips one last, desperate plea, “ _I’m sorry—Hux, please—”_

* * *

 

“Shit shit shit,” Poe muttered, paging frantically down the terminal screen, his dark eyes scanning rapidly over the glowing text. “Shit—”

Finn tugged on his shoulder, glancing frantically over his shoulder. Two full squads were hot on their backs, and Jess couldn’t hold them off with blanket fire for long. “Poe, we gotta split _now!”_

“Just a second—“ Poe clung to the console with fierce tenacity, his eyes never leaving the screen. “You go on, I’ll follow—“

“No way,” Finn snapped, the thought of leaving Poe alone sending a flutter of panic flying to his throat. _Poe captured—at the mercy of Kylo Ren—forced to give up the safety of everything he cared for—_ the thought was overwhelming. Finn seized Poe by the middle and forcibly lifted him away from the console, dragging him bodily away from the secluded closet where they’d sliced into the First Order’s servers.

“Finn—just give me a minute more, I can—Finn _stop_ —“ Poe cried, but Finn ignored him, grabbing his hand and pulling him away just as a storm of blaster fire punished the spot he’d been standing in just a second before.

Finn pushed Poe behind him and fired into the crowd of stormtroopers charging towards them. His heart was hammering furiously in his chest, the cold terror and thrill of combat pounding through his veins. He forced himself to see past the familiar stormtrooper mask and see only people who wanted to hurt him, hurt Jess and Poe, to take his hard-won freedom away.

Poe snatched up a blaster and pulled Finn to relative safety, taking cover behind the corner of the hall.

“Jess! You all right?” Finn shouted over the cacophony, stealing a quick glance towards her on the opposite side of the hall. Her teeth were grit and she was providing a steady blanket of fire against the advancing troopers. Her left arm had been hit so she’d swapped to her right.

“I’m fine,” Jess shouted back. “Which way to the refuse station?”

“This way!” Poe shouted, grabbing Finn’s hand and dashing across the hall. Blaster bolts sizzled past them so close Finn could smell the ozone, the charred singe on Poe’s jacket. Finn felt his feet fairly flying over the worn deck, heard the loud clatter of the troopers’ boots behind them, Poe’s sweaty hand gripping his.

Jess too a sharp right and Poe and Finn skittered to follow. The refuse station door swished shut behind them and all three of them put a bolt in the panel, exploding it in a shower of sparks.

“Where now?” Poe asked breathlessly. Finn realized with a jolt that both he and Jess were looking at him.

Finn glanced around, thoughts racing. Their plan—get in a empty bin and let it carry them to the hangar, where the trash was transported to the compressor and jettisoned, then steal a ship and blast out—assumed that they hadn’t been detected.

A port in the wall caught Finn’s eye and he dashed over, slamming the release. The hatch cycled open and Finn craned his head out, looking around. Below was a huge dumpster, overflowing with bags of waste, nearly ten meters down. The hanger stretched out just beyond it, gleaming and tempting.

“No,” Jess said. “No way. That’s insane. Even if we survived the jump, who knows what’s in the—”

“Compost,” Finn lied. “Nothing but organics to be recycled. We’ll be fine.”

Jess looked like she was about to protest when a harsh whine sounded behind them. Finn turned. A glow of plasma was starting in the door—they were going to cut it through—

“Now!” Poe yelled and Finn grabbed Jess’ hand just before leaping down to the unknown fate below— _relax,_ he recalled from some half-remembered training adage about falling. Next thing he knew his back hit something with crushing force and he was thrown into the air, his hand ripping from Poe’s, tumbling gracelessly onto the deck. His back felt like it was on fire.  
  
At least he'd been right about the dumpster being soft enough for landing.

Poe and Jess were already on their feet—Finn figured their pilots’ training against G-force had adapted them to the whiplash more readily. “C’mon, buddy,” Poe whispered, helping Finn to his feet, pushing his blaster back into his hands. “We gotta get to that ship fast—we’ve got company.”

Finn raised his blaster and fired at the trooper who’d been about to put a bolt in Poe’s back, then staggered to his feet, taking off towards the nearest shuttle. Jess charged up the ramp, firing at an officer who’d been chasing after them and knocking him flying. Poe dashed past her and Finn and went straight to the ship’s console, fingers flying over the controls.

“It’s not working! I need command override!” Poe shouted, his voice tight with stress. Finn swore and cast about for inspiration—

The downed officer Jess had shot caught his eye.

“Cover me, I’m going in,” Finn shouted, pointing to the officer’s body, then ducked and ran towards the fallen body. Jess’ counterfire sizzled around him, the shots ringing through the spacious hangar. He rifled hastily through the officer’s pockets—she _had_ to have command override, she _had_ to—

He found a foreign yet familiar card in her belt and pushed to his feet, firing into the advancing crowd of troopers, retreating as fast as he could. When he neared the ramp the troopers began to run—Finn turned around and dashed for the ship’s entrance—

Jess palmed the ramp release the second Finn threw himself behind the ship’s support column. Finn tossed the card to Poe, who slapped it down on the console’s scanner.

The engines thrummed to life.

Finn and Jess rushed to the viewport just in time to see the hangar bay slowly closing, a thick blast door slowly descending. It would reach the ground in five, four—

Poe punched the thrusters with reckless abandon. There was a tortured squeal of metal on metal as the ship shot unsteadily forwards, its belly dragging on the ground. The blast doors were closing rapidly. Finn grabbed the nearest brace and held on tight.

“Poe—“ Jess warned.

“I got it,” Poe replied, his voice coming out through gritted teeth. He threw the ship into a steep climb, snapping it into a tight roll that Finn knew should not be possible in atmosphere—

There was a horrendous _squealch_ of ripping metal as Poe threaded the ship between the nearly closed bay doors but suddenly the light of the hangar gave way to the dark of space and—

 _“Punch it!”_ Poe shouted and Jess wrenched the lever forwards and the ship leapt promptly to hyperspace, leaving behind only empty subspace and floating debris.

 

 

 

“Hold still,” Finn said superfluously, breaking out a cleansing pack and dabbing carefully at the burn on Jess’s arm. She barely flinched at the sting, watching Finn’s deft movements passively.

“You okay?” Poe asked, his voice colored with concern. It occurred to Finn then that Poe looked very, very tired.

Jess nodded. “Right as rain, sir.” she smiled at Finn. “Your boyfriend’s taking care of me, so I’ve got no worries.”

Poe managed a tired smile, watching Finn work with fondness. “Yeah. You’re good with that, buddy.”

“Well don’t you go getting yourself shot so you can get his ministrations,” Jess teased with a grin, barely even wincing as Finn prepped the area for application of a bacta patch. “The general wouldn’t be pleased.”

At mention of General Organa, Poe rubbed at his temples and groaned. “Hells, did we fuck this up,” he groaned. “Not _only_ did we not get her a copy of the information, we also gave them the bargaining chip of all bargaining chips. Resistance soldiers caught stealing information in an armed raid during armistice talks? It’ll be a shitfest.”

Finn’s stomach clenched. He hadn’t even _thought_ of that, too busy being relieved that they’d all made it through in once piece. “The general will deal with it, Poe.”

“I _know_ she will,” Poe snapped back, with uncharacteristic sharpness. “That’s the problem. I made trouble for her. This is my responsibility.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Jess fired back. “This is on all of us. There were multiple aims to this mission. Maybe some of those will bear fruit.”

She looked to Finn, hopeful. Poe looked slightly guilty at forgetting his personal motivation for coming along.

“I didn’t find my file,” he told them, fighting levity into his voice, focusing hard on sealing the patch around Jess’ wound. The admission itself felt like failure. “I’d just gotten to the stormtrooper banks when the alarm tripped.”

“I’m sorry, Finn,” Poe said roughly, kneeling down and putting his hand on Finn’s arm. “We’ll find them somehow. I promise.”

“I just hope Rey’s okay,” Finn said to the floor, his voice hardly above a whisper. “I miss her. We need her back.”

“Me too, buddy,” Poe said lowly. Finn’s chest throbbed, deep near his heart. “Me too.”

 

* * *

 

Hux was still shaking with the aftermath of adrenaline when his comlink gave a loud twitter. He considered ignoring it, then remembered he was off-duty, so whatever it was must be important. (Or else, he thought bitterly).

 _“Sir._ ” It was Phasma. Hux’s ire lessened considerably—the captain would never waste his time on a matter of non-importance.

“Captain.” he replied crisply, feeling a note of pride at the steadiness of his voice despite the twinges in his throat.

“ _Tightbeam from one of our server ships. They apprehended a group of Resistance soldiers attempting to slice the intelligence blocks.”_

Hux’s blood went cold. “Were they successful?”

“ _Unclear, sir. Technicians on the scene do not believe any information was leaked, but certain files may have been accessed briefly.”_

Hux felt a twisting, coiling sense of unease in his gut. “Which files, Captain?”

There was a brief halt. Then, “ _Yours, sir._ ”

Hux felt his hands clench into fists, his gloves creaking with strain. “Anything else, captain?”

Another pause. “Yes, sir. Among the Resistance soldiers were Poe Dameron and FN-2187. They were caught on camera during their escape from the server facility.”

Hux could hear the thinly-contained fury in Phasma’s modulated voice as acutely as he could feel his own. Dameron and the deserter—the bloody _cheek_ of the two—the cheek of the _Resistance,_ of Organa—

“Send a copy of the footage to me,” Hux said tightly, through his teeth. “Deal with those involved as you see fit and update me at all turns.”

 _“Acknowledged, sir._ ”

Hux thumbed off his comm., seething internally. He’d trusted Organa—well, not _trusted,_ exactly, but had allowed himself a modicum of collusion with her—and she’d betrayed that trust. Would she do the same with the armistice signing? It hardly mattered: if she went back on her word, he would be fully prepared to retaliate with full-scale war. Peace was never a long-term option. Betrayal would just hasten the inevitable.

 

* * *

 

Kylo tapped closed the recorder on his barely-used datapad, hesitating over deleting the message. He deleted it, hunting down a stray flimsi and scrawling a quick message on it, tossing it on his desk and throwing the stylus aside. He’d dug out his simple, roughspun training black training tunic, short-sleeved with little elaboration. Rey’s lightsaber was hooked to his belt for safekeeping. He carried no comlink, no mask, just his few worldly credits and a few ration packs he’d found somewhere.

His Knights were spread over the galaxy, elbow-deep in missions for Hux—eliminating dissidents, securing stations, snooping for traitors within his governors’ ranks. Hux had Phasma to protect him, and certainly didn’t want Ren. He wasn’t needed on the _Finalizer_ , and certainly not wanted on Bespin. There was only one person who could possibly need see him, and she was the last person in the galaxy he currently wanted to see.

Rey.

He owed her. She needed him, he told himself in efforts to make the fluttering wings in his stomach and the flat dread abate. She was in trouble, she needed help.

The truth, he knew, was the exact opposite. The last thing his cousin needed was to see him. He was the one in desperate need of help. And it was her that could give it to him.

He also knew full well she had no reason to.

Kylo pushed these doubts out of his mind, letting a single-minded determination overtake him. He needed to find Rey. To find her he needed a ship. To get a ship he’d have to take one.

He headed for the _Finalizer’s_ hangar bay. Hux would likely kill him upon his return—perhaps literally. Kylo didn’t care. He knew what he had to do with an almost ludicrous certainty. And questioning his own actions had never been one of his strong suits.

Now that his face was known among the _Finalizer_ ’s crew, no one dared question him when he marched up the ramp of the nearest shuttle and ordered he be given sole access at once. Within minutes the command override had been given and the console thrummed to life on presentation of his access codes.

Kylo reached out and smudged the memory of his departure lightly from the technician on duty’s mind. It would likely cost the woman a trip to reconditioning, but he couldn’t particularly care.

He primed the engines, dropping into the uncomfortable pilot’s seat, scanning the command console. It was built for two pilots, that much was immediately obvious, but Kylo didn’t care. He reached to key in a destination into the navicomputer, then realized he had not the vaguest clue where to go. He gave a mental shrug; he could meditate on it later. For now, his first priority was to get off the _Finalizer_. As soon as the engines were hot, Kylo engaged the thrusters with a powerful _push_ that made his stomach swoop and his heart leap into his throat.

It was a painfully unfamiliar feeling, blasting out of the hangar and into the comforting void of space—being alone. Aimless.

Free.

**Author's Note:**

> This is part one of three parts, as finals season effectively cut me off from writing the full thing. The second two parts will be of similar length and (hopefully) written and posted soon-ish.
> 
> I'm afraid I deviated from the prompt some, maybe a lot. As in what was a focused oneshot or so grew a plot, feelings, and more plot. I hope I was still faithful enough to the original and that you enjoyed, despite all that. :)
> 
> You can find me on tumblr [here](firstordershitposting.tumblr.com).


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